China has shown its contempt for Australia by refusing to import the millions of tonnes of Australian coal on more than 80 ships off Chinese ports, even though the country was forced to triple coal imports in December to try and boost output of electricity in the middle of a harsh winter.
The surprise surge in import volumes came after nine consecutive months of falling inbound shipments.
So large was the increase that they pushed the total for 2020 to an all time high of 304 million tonnes, four million tonnes above the country’s unofficial import limit.
The reason for the sudden increase was the intense winter cold across much of northern and central China which forced Beijing to relax import restrictions for some utilities to help meet surging demand for heating.
Chinese media reported in mid-December that the country’s top economic planner had allowed power plants to import coal without clearance restrictions, except for Australia, which accounts for about 40% of Chinese imports.
The government authorities had been enforcing the unofficial 300 million tonnes a year quota to shore up the faltering, high cost domestic mining industry. Coal imports – especially for high grade coal for the steel industry – costs less than locally produced coal.
Coal imports totalled 39.08 million tonnes last month, data from the General Administration of Customs showed on Thursday, up 232.3% from 11.76 million tonnes in November and only 2.77 million tonnes in December a year ago.
China boosted imports from Indonesia, Inner Mongolia, Canada and Russia, at sharply higher prices, rather than import the coal shitting on Australian chartered ships offshore ports like Shanghai.
Much of that coal is bound for the steel industry which has been forced to pay much more for quality coal from Canada and US.
