China's net coal imports may surge 40 percent in 2010, even as its total output for the year is expected to rise some 8 percent to over 3 billion tonnes, according to data from the China Coal Industry Association. China, the world's top coal producer and consumer, produced 3.04 billion tonnes of raw coal in the first 11 months of the year and total output for 2010 is expected to exceed 3.2 billion tonnes, the association said in a statement seen on Tuesday.
China produced a total of 2.965 billion tonnes in 2009. Net coal imports from China may jump from a year ago to reach 145 million tonnes this year, after exports fell and gross imports rose 35 percent in the first 11 months, the association said in an annual review of the industry. Its forecast far exceeds analysts' expectations for net coal imports to rise 29 percent in 2010, according to a Reuters poll late last month, and may signal for stronger-than-expected imports next year.
The meteoric surge in China's coal imports began in earnest in 2007, when its overseas shipments unexpectedly jumped 34 percent from a year earlier, as domestic supplies fell after government began a crackdown on small and illegal mines. Its transformation into a net coal importing nation in 2009 was a big U-turn from net exports of about 70 million-80 million tonnes in 2005.
Strong import demand from China and India has sparked a revival of the global coal industry, prompting international thermal coal prices to rally in recent years and has ignited a raft of mine expansions and take-overs. On industry restructuring, the association said the total number of coal mines fell 40 percent to 10,500, with each colliery on average having an annual output of 200,000 tonnes, double the rate recorded in 2005.
Large coal firms now account for 87 percent of the country's total production, with the number of large-scale miners with an annual output of at least 10 million tonnes rising to 43 companies. In a statement on its website, the coal association also said that fixed asset investment in the Chinese coal sector reached 320.7 billion yuan ($48.37 billion) over the first 11 months of the year, up 22.7 percent compared to the same period of 2009.
It added that coal stocks stood at 218 million tonnes by the end of November, 28 percent higher than the beginning of the year, but inventories held by coal enterprises have fallen 30 percent to 40 million tonnes over the period. On safety, the coal association said total fatalities from mining accidents fell 9.7 percent in the first 11 months to 2,209 people, while the casualty rate based on per tonne of coal produced fell 20 percent to 0.727. China's National Bureau of Statistics has not released official monthly raw coal output figures since May, saying it was changing the way it compiled the data.
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