China's First-Quarter 2012 Coal Output Up 5.8% Year Over Year

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources China (Beijing, China)--In the first quarter of 2012, China's total coal output reached 838 million metric tons, an increase of 5.8% year over year. The accumulative coal volume shipped by railway nationwide reached 594 million metric tons, an increase of 6.1% year over year, and the accumulative import of coal and lignite in the first two months of 2012 reached 37.98 million metric tons, an increase of 62% year over year, according to Xianzheng Wang , the president of China Coal Industry Association (CCIA) at the 6th Session of the Third Meeting of the Board of Directors of the CCIA on April 8, 2012.

"Starting from the fourth quarter of 2011, due to the impact of multiple factors such as the global financial crisis and the European debt crisis, the growth in Chinese economy has shown an obvious downward trend," said Wang at the meeting. Under such as a situation, the growth of demand in the Chinese coal market was slowed. Moreover, coal stockpiles have shown the trend of shifting toward the downstream. The price of power coal has been slightly weakened; the price of coking coal has steadily declined; and the receivable account of coal enterprises is tending to increase.

"In view of the current market situation, China's coal market will be kept on the status of an overall balancing between demand and supply, with supply slightly higher than demand in the second quarter," predicted Wang.

According to the statistical data, the growth of China's output of major coal-consuming products such as power, pig iron and cement reached 6.8%, 3.2% and 4.8% in the first 2 months 2012, a drop of 4.2, 0.5 and 2.2 percent points compared with the growth rate in December 2011, respectively.

As of the end of March 2012, China's coal stockpile reached 223 million metric tons, which remained at this level for 10 months. The stockpile in coal enterprises reached 50 million metric tons, a decline of 3.8% compared with the previous month; the stockpile in power enterprises reached 76.68 million metric tons, which is equivalent to 19 days of consumption.

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