China's economic planner in a latest notice required stable coal production and shipment from Shanxi and Inner Mongolia despite the resurgent COVID infections in the top two coal provinces recently.
While strictly complying to local anti-epidemic rules, local coal miners were also asked to put shipments to power utilities as a priority in order to guarantee enough supply to brace for possible demand surges alongside the forecast harsh cold waves in the short run, according to the notice.
Coal delivery from Shanxi and Inner Mongolia has reportedly been subject to hindrance to different extent since this round of COVID flare-up, which blocked many long-haul trucks from loading coal and built up stocks at local mines. This also drove thermal coal miners to slash offer prices by 100-150 yuan/t accumulatively since the latest epidemic outbreak.
For now, compared with sluggish demand from power plants, Sxcoal learned from local producers that chemical and metallurgical plants were mainly making purchases.
The local governments and China State Railway Group were asked to work cooperatively to raise coal railings of Daqin line, and build up thermal coal stocks at power utilities, said the Economic Operation Regulation Bureau of NDRC.
The daily shipment volume of the line once slumped to only 400,000 tonnes after the outbreak of COVID among train drivers, and the figure on November 30 has risen to 1.05 million tonnes.
In addition, the NDRC has sent group to supervise coal miners to expand coal production capacity, and asked miners to report their monthly long-term contract fulfillment.
(Writing by Rebecca Liu Editing by Tammy Yang)
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