Despite, China upping coal imports by +10Mt/Mth on average to a total of 474Mt in 2023, imports from Russia peaked at 8.1Mt/mth in Jun’23 and have since contracted by -40% from its top to 5Mt/mth on average in 4Q’23, whilst market-share halved to 12%, the lowest on record since 2022 and the war in Ukraine.
What happened in the past 12 months? Leveraging on political changes in Australia in 2022, a truce was agreed on the Sino-Australian initiated in 2020 and China restarted importing various Australian goods, including coal. On the other side, acknowledging lower coal prices in 2023, the logistics of Russian coal shipping from European ports was optimized in favour of more nearby destinations, such as India & Turkey, still allowing Russian coal exports to grow +1% YoY to 213Mt.
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