The Coal Demand and Shortage
October 9th 2011 20:10
The craze among investors and trader for the high profile commodities like Gold, copper, oil and silver has made everyone away from the other essential commodities and the acute shortage the industry is facing. Among them is Coal- most commonly known as metallurgical coal or met coal or coking coal.
The Met Coal is a important raw material for making met coke which is a essential raw material for Steel Industry around the world. Due to acute shortage, the met coal supplies are not able to match the demand, hence there is price increase. The prices have almost tripled in past five years.
The price rise of met coal may be because of the recent heavy floods in Australia. The mining companies are still trying to complete the pending orders with them. The floods resulted in closing of major mines in State of Queensland.
The increase in steel production in Asia has made the demand rapidly high. The Chinese import of coking coal was zero in the starting for 2008 and has almost risen to 30 million tons by the end of 2009 and is keep on increasing every year.
This year it’s expected that the Chinese imports of Coking coal will cross 55 million tons. Rio Tinto is the biggest producer of Met coke in world. Recently the demand of met coke has increased in other Asian countries like South Korea and India. This may again increase the shortage in the supply against the high demand by the Asian steel producers.
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