China customs announced a 3% tax on imported brown coal beginning Aug. 30 but China's largest supplier, Indonesia, will probably be exempted due to China's FTA with the ASEAN. Prices of coal in China continued decreasing over the last two weeks (down 14% so far this year).
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The import tax will add about $1.30 per tonne to cost of coal imported from Australia, Russia and Mongolia (and US and North Korea). Indonesia has supplied 97% of the lignite that China has imported so far this year, it is hard to see what impact the tax will really have in terms of propping up domestic producers or cutting down on imports to China -- but it could push several tens of millions of tonnes of alternative supply towards Korea and Japan.
* 3 pct tax set on lignite imports from some countries
* Lignite exempted from import tariffs under China-ASEAN FTA
* Indonesia accounted for 97 pct of China's lignite imports in Jan-July
China has announced a 3 percent tax on imports of steam coal with low calorific value but the move will have no impact on top supplier Indonesia as a trade deal with Southeast Asian nations will ensure that those shipments continue to enjoy zero tariff.
Climate campaigners start 'hunger strike' to block Queensland coal project - Guardian Australia's coal industry is being targeted by a range of campaigns from divestment to civil disobedience ... "We will only have water, and tea with no milk or sugar".
Australian thermal coal slips despite China demand uptick | Reuters Benchmark Australian thermal coal prices dipped back down this week, after a brief rise last week on hopes that demand from top consumer China would increase. Australia's Newcastle spot daily index was slightly lower at $79.28 per tonne on Thursday from $79.58 a week earlier, data from online trading platform globalCOAL showed.
Australia's Indus Coal to start up 2 mil mt/year Indonesia coal mine in a year - Platts | Indus Coal intends to start up a 2 million mt/year sub-bituminous coal mine in Indonesia's Jambi province within the next 12 months, the Australia-listed company said, adding that the coal will have an average calorific value of 5,300 kcal/kg gross air dried. ... The Jambi project is located in an area that produces export thermal grade coal sought after by power producers in China and India, the source added.
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China's domestic thermal coal prices are bottoming - Platts | China's domestic thermal prices are bottoming due to increased coal demand and transactions, while local producers like China Coal and Shenhua are not expected to cut production, an analysts' report from UOBKayHian said Tuesday. The report also said that in January-July, China's total coal production fell 3.5% year on year to 2.1 billion mt. China Coal and Shenhua's coal production increased 6% and 2% year-on-year respectively, showing that low cost producers are not cutting production and would continue to gain from increasing their market share. Shenhua's coal sales were down by 27% to 33.1 million mt, compared to its coal production of 26 million mt last month.
Majority of China's Proposed Coal-Fired Power Plants Located in Water-Stressed Regions | WRI Insights According to a new WRI analysis, more than half of China's proposed coal-fired power plants are slated to be built in areas of high or extremely high water stress. If these plants are built, they could further strain already-scarce resources, threatening water security for China's farms, other industries, and communities.
Silver Lining in China's Smog as It Puts Focus on Emissions - NYTimes.com |Jiang Kejun may be one of the few Beijing residents who see a ray of hope in the smog engulfing the city. A researcher in a state energy institute, he is an outspoken advocate of swiftly cutting China's greenhouse gas output, and he says public anger about noxious air has jolted the government, which long dismissed pollution as the necessary price of prosperity...."They will not be happy to see that the investment in new capacity they made a few years ago may have to be scrapped," said Wang Tao, an expert on climate change and energy issues at the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy in Beijing. "It really all depends on how quickly China can transform the current economic structure."