China is seeking coal supplies from overseas, in particular after recent Covid-19 outbreaks in the major coal mining regions of Inner Mongolia and Shaanxi forced many mines to close, while coal demand at power generation and heating sectors will soon pick up with the coming of winter.
But now with more exports heading east towards Asia as opposed to west towards Europe, bottlenecks are appearing. Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov has acknowledged the problem with infrastructure constraints, saying this month that the situation with coal exports and congestion on the rail system had not stabilised, though it was improving.from Russia fell to 6.95 million tonnes last month, down from a peak of 8.54 million tonnes in August, according to China’s customs data.
“We would expect China’s coal imports from Russia to decrease due to the cool weather, which will limit port loading, and the rail logistics cap will also help to put a lid on,” the Chinese coal trader said.