Recently,
Australian Labor Party failed Australian election, leaving the success to
existing government. The move means the worsening China-Australia
relationship may remain unclear.
Chinese Coal Import Sources
The
sources of China’s coal imports are mainly from Indonesia and Australia,
followed by Inner Mongolia and Russia which in fact is unfavorable in
shipping cost to China due to expensive rail transportation. In
comparison, southeastern regions in China are having advantage in buying
Australian and Indonesian coal. It is introduced that most of
Indonesia’s thermal coal is lignite coal, with low caloric value.
The top three suppliers of China’s coal imports are
Indonesia, Australia and Russia, among which Indonesia’s coal takes over
50 percent of the share.
Imports from Australia Shrink
China’s coal import dived sharply from 2015 when
central government strived to get Chinese coal industry rid of poor
situation. Then in 2016, Chinese government called for Supply-Side Reform
which resulted into supply shortage from domestic coalminers. Therefore
the imports volume started to climb up and even in 2018 hit record high of
recent four years.
From 2017, Chinese government conducted the
restriction for coal imports by stricter coal quality inspection for
inbound shipments. Thereafter, the clearing of Australian coal was
prolonged.
It is introduced that coal import from Australia kept
falling as the proportion in total import from 2018. Customs of China
released that China’s coal import in the first three months totaled
74.623 million tons, down 1.8 percent on year. Among which, coal import
from Australia was 18.3347 million tons, down 11.32 percent on year.
In response to “China Strictly Inspects Coal Import
from Australia”, spokesman of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China in
March 2019 introduced that China finds many unqualified cases after the
conduct of risk supervision and analysis on imported coal, and our
stricter quality inspection and environmental protection regulation for
imported coal is aimed at better protecting Chinese importers, the legal
right for Chinese users and ecological environmental safety of China.
It is known that the clearing of Australian coal at
Chinese ports have been prolonged. For instance, the clearing at eastern
ports takes around 60 days, and that at Guangzhou port, South China, takes
40+ days. No Australia-originated coal is uploaded via northeastern ports
yet.
With the continuous governance of Australian existing
government, the China-Australia relationship will draw great attention,
but the uncertainties will remain, which will generate inactive trading of
Chinese importers.
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