OREANDA-NEWS   According to the results of the first ten months of 2024, the share of Russian coal supplies in the structure of China's imports, considered a key sales market, decreased by five percentage points (pp) and dropped to 18 percent. This is reported by the Kommersant newspaper with reference to data from the Center for Price Indices (CCI).

For comparison, in the same period of 2022, the share of Russian coal supplies in China's import structure was 23 percent. In 2024, the share of the main exporter of this type of fuel in China, Indonesia, has also significantly decreased. The indicator decreased by 14 percentage points and dropped to the level of 44 percent.

In turn, the shares of other exporters to China showed the opposite dynamics during the reporting period. Thus, the share of Mongolia in the structure of Chinese imports in January-October increased by 5 percentage points to 15 percent, Australia — by 14 percentage points, from 1 to 15 percent. In general, in the first ten months of 2024, China increased coal imports from 230 million to 435 million tons.

According to the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation, China ranks first among importers of Russian coal, this Asian country accounts for 48 percent of all supplies. By the end of 2023, China increased purchases by 42 percent compared to 2022, to 100 million tons. However, in 2024, exports in this direction began to gradually fall. According to the results of January-July, the cost of Russian coal supplies to China decreased by 1.7 times year-on-year and fell to $ 5.5 billion.

The drop in exports to the key sales market eventually led to an increase in the number of unprofitable coal companies in Russia. According to Rosstat, in January-April 2024, the share of such exporters amounted to 52.4 percent. During the reporting period, the cumulative losses of these companies exceeded their total profit by 14.3 billion rubles, and total revenue in annual terms collapsed 15 times.