NPR
Louisa Lim
In China's capital, they're calling it the "airpocalypse," with air pollution that's literally off the charts. The air has been classified as hazardous to human health for a fifth consecutive day, at its worst hitting pollution levels 25 times that considered safe in the U.S. The entire city is blanketed in a thick grey smog that smells of coal and stings the eyes, leading to official warnings to stay inside.
ASIA THERMAL COAL: Term deals find favor with Chinese consumers
Platts
Reggie Le
Chinese end-users have switched to concluding term contract deals and lessened their spot buying with the approach of China's Lunar New Year festivities in mid-February, as spot prices for south China stayed rangebound in Thursday's trading session in Asia at $85/mt CFR basis 5,500 kcal/kg NAR, said market sources.
Bloomberg
Chua Baizhen
Chua Baizhen
China will cut coal imports this year as the cost of domestic supplies declines, Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. said in a report.
Net purchases from overseas will drop 47 percent to 150 million metric tons this year from 281 million in 2012, Bernstein said in the e-mailed note today. Average domestic benchmark prices will fall 7 percent, it said.
China, the world’s largest consumer and producer of coal, is undergoing a structural slowdown in power-consumption growth just as the capacity for production and transport of coal increases, according to Bernstein. Domestic prices will slide through 2015, while still being susceptible to “seasonal bumps,” Bernstein said.
“We believe that Chinese coal imports are likely to fall in absolute terms in 2013 as lower-priced domestic supply pushes out imports,” Michael Parker, a Hong Kong-based analyst at Bernstein, said in the report. “Over that entire time, we expect coal prices to trend downward. There is plenty of supply available both domestically and from the seaborne market if coal prices creep back up.”