Russian coal exports have been growing, with producers capitalizing on Far Eastern demand in particular.

January to May shipments are up more than 15% on the previous year to 48.2 million tonnes with the volume going to China almost doubling to around 6.2 million tonne. On first glance one might assume that most of this growth is coking coal, given the extremely strong steel production we saw in China during Q2, however it has in fact been exceeded by growth of thermal coal

In terms of other seaborne coal shipments, growth of Japanese and South Korean purchasing has also been strong 40.4% and 32.4% respectively while the EU remains Russia’s staple export destination accounting for around 46% of shipments. That being said we may now be at an inflexion point, with the strong export performance facing downward pressure in the remainder of this year.

It has been reported that Russian miners have already started following their US counterparts in cutting coal production, as depressed prices in the export market seriously challenge profitability. Indeed exporters a few weeks ago estimated a potential loss of between 6 million tonnes to 8 million tonnes of exports owing to the reduced output.

Source - ICAP Shipping

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