Yesterday, the National Development and Reform Commission released an analysis report saying that due to the rapid economic growth, the demand in the coal market has been buoyant. Coal power consumption of coal-fired power plants has picked up rapidly since March, and coal prices have also risen slightly. However, at present, the overall situation of the coal market in the country is balanced, and there may be tight supply in some areas in the later period.

The coal price began to rise. The data shows that on March 24th, the price of 5,500 kcal thermal coal in Qinhuangdao Port was 770-780 yuan/ton, which was an increase of 5 yuan/ton from the end of February. In the first two months of this year, the country's raw coal output was 516 million tons, an increase of 13.5% year-on-year, and sales volume was 497 million tons, an increase of 7.1% year-on-year. The National Development and Reform Commission stated that as the nation’s thermal power generation capacity and production of crude steel and cement all continued to grow rapidly, coal demand began to pick up.

The sharp drop in coal imports in February It is worth noting that due to the impact of rising international coal prices, imports of coal in February were 6.76 million tons, down 47.6% year-on-year. In the first two months, coal exports also fell by 7.3%.

The National Development and Reform Commission stated that the decline in coal imports in February was mainly due to the impact of floods in Australia, and the international coal resources were tightly distributed. Second, international coal prices continued to rise, and corporate import enthusiasm was inhibited. Li Chaolin, a domestic coal expert, said that the current slight recovery in coal prices has been mainly driven by the recovery of industrial enterprises, but there is still a lack of substantial rise in the short term.