Thailand’s largest coal miner Banpu plans to increase coal shipments to China by about 30% to 2 million tonnes in 2009.

Mr Hendri Tan assistant vice president of the company’s China and North Asia marketing department said that but that would still be lower than the level in 2007, when volumes sent to China totaled about 2.5 to 3 million tones.

He added that most of Banpu’s coal comes from its mines in Indonesia, which last year exported 11.5 million tonnes of coal to China.

According to official customs data, China’s coal imports soared to record high in March at 5.72 million tonnes, since international prices have slumped because of the global slowdown and because China’s miners have yet to lock big local power producers into term contracts for the year.

Mr Hartono Widjaja senior vice president of Marketing China & North Asia said that “China’s coal import spree is likely to continue at least through this year. The renminbi is strong and China’s domestic coal production cost is not low any more. International coal is very competitive in terms of price in southern ports.”

But other traders have said they are less optimistic, as they find the window for coal imports short and unpredictable.

source: steel guru

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