1. The growth rate of global coal supply has expanded, and the concentration of production has increased at a high level
Globally, from 2018 to 2022, global coal production maintained positive growth in all years except for negative growth in 2020, which was mainly due to the fact that the stability of coal mine production in the world's major coal producing countries was affected to varying degrees in 2020, and coal mine production decreased. After 2021, affected by the tight supply and demand pattern of the global coal industry, the profits of the coal industry are considerable, the enthusiasm of coal mine production in the world's major coal producing countries has increased significantly, and the global coal output has grown rapidly, with global coal production in 2022 increasing by 7.71% compared with 2021 to 8.803 billion tons, the highest year-on-year growth rate since 2018.
The concentration of global coal production is high, and from the perspective of regional distribution, Asia accounts for the largest proportion of coal production, and from the perspective of countries, China is the world's largest coal producer. The specific data are as follows: global coal production in 2022 is still mainly concentrated in Asia, which accounts for 76.97% of global coal production in 2022, an increase of 0.97 percentage points compared with 2021, and coal production in Asia, North America, CIS, and Europe accounts for 96.36% of the world's total coal production in 2022. In 2022, China's coal output accounted for 51.8%, an increase of 1.32 percentage points from 2021, and the world's top ten coal producing countries accounted for 92.74% of global coal production, an increase of 1.64 percentage points from 2021.
2. Global coal demand continues to grow, and demand concentration continues to increase
In terms of global coal consumption, from 2018 to 2022, global coal consumption as a whole showed a trend of first declining and then increasing, but the total consumption basically remained at the level of more than 7 billion tons, and coal is still an important basic consumption energy in the world. From 2018 to 2020, the continuous decline in global coal consumption is mainly affected by the transformation of the global "de-coaling" energy structure, especially in developed countries such as Europe and the United States, the rapid "de-coalization" process, which has led to a decline in total global coal consumption, and in 2020, global industrial production will be suspended, and the decline in coal consumption will be further expanded, and the total global coal consumption in 2020 will be 7.215 billion tons, a decrease of 407 million tons or 5.34% compared with 2018; After entering 2021, under the interference of multiple factors such as the gradual recovery of global industrial production, the frequent occurrence of extreme weather around the world, and local geopolitical tensions, the global energy supply stability system has been disrupted, and countries have resumed coal power in order to ensure energy security, and coal demand has stopped falling and rebounded, and the total global coal consumption in 2022 will be 7.687 billion tons, an increase of 6.54% over 2020 and the highest level since 2014.
From a regional perspective, the global coal consumption regions in 2022 are mainly concentrated in Asia, North America and Europe, which account for 93.57% of the total global coal consumption, an increase of 0.55 percentage points compared with 2021, and the coal consumption in the Asia-Pacific region will account for 80.82% of the total global coal consumption in 2022. Compared with 2021, the proportion increased by 1.1 percentage points, mainly because of the abundant coal resources in Asia and the low cost of development and use, and on the other hand, because there are many developing countries in Asia, which are highly dependent on traditional energy sources such as coal;
From the perspective of major coal consumers, coal consumption is mainly concentrated in China, India, the United States, Japan, and Indonesia, which account for 79.01% of global coal consumption, an increase of 0.99 percentage points from 2021, especially China and India, China is the world's largest coal consumer, and China's coal consumption accounts for 54.75% of the world's total coal consumption in 2022. With an increase of 0.93 percentage points from 2021, India is the world's second largest coal consumer, accounting for 12.44% of the world's total coal consumption in 2022. China and India have relatively rapid economic development and large energy consumption, and both countries have relatively rich coal resources and low coal costs, so China and India account for a large share of total global coal consumption.
3. In 2023, both ends of global coal supply and demand will grow, and the increase in supply will be more obvious
Supply side: According to the National Bureau of Statistics of China, China produced 3.05 billion tons of raw coal from January to August, a year-on-year increase of 3.4%; According to data released by the Ministry of Coal, from January to August 2023, India's total coal production (including lignite) totaled 674 million tons, an increase of 9.9% over the same period last year; According to the latest data from the Indonesian Ministry of Energy, Indonesia is expected to produce 694.5 million tons of coal in 2023, and a total of 360.6 million tons of coal production was achieved from January to June
, completed 52% of the annual coal output, an increase of 66.6 million tons over the same period last year, an increase of 22.65%; From January to June 2023, Mongolia's coal output totaled 31.8823 million tons, an increase of 205.45% over the same period of the previous year. The increase in coal production in the world's major coal producing countries has ensured sufficient global coal supply.
Demand side: Since 2023, the domestic economic development of the world's major economies has faced certain upward pressure, mainly due to factors such as tight geopolitical situation in some parts of the world, extreme weather interference, global inflation and other factors, especially in the first half of 2023, the economic growth of various countries is relatively slow, coal demand is relatively limited, and the global coal supply and demand pattern continues to loosen; After entering the second half of the year, with the implementation of various global economic stimulus policies, the market's confidence in economic recovery has improved, the economic growth rate has increased to a certain extent compared with the first half of the year, the demand for coal has improved, and the demand side has strengthened its support for the market.
To sum up, the tight pattern of global coal supply and demand in 2022 has been alleviated to a certain extent, and global coal production will continue to maintain positive growth in 2023, and the global coal supply will be relatively sufficient. On the demand side, due to the upward pressure on the economy, the growth of coal demand is relatively slow, which is not as fast as the growth rate of the supply side, so the global coal supply and demand pattern is expected to turn loose in 2023, and the center of gravity of international coal prices in 2023 may continue to pull back compared with 2022.