The Coal industry in 2026
The Coal Trade Nobody Talks About
Humans have mined coal for more than three thousand years. For most of that history it was a local fuel for local fires. The seaborne global trade emerged with the industrial age. A billion tonnes a year move on Capesize hulls between a handful of deep-water terminals. Letter-of-credit conventions written in 1933 still settle the contracts.
In 2024 global coal tonnage hit a record while export revenue fell $87 billion from the 2022 peak. Russia, the world's third-largest coal exporter, stopped filing trade data in 2022, leaving a gap every public dataset has carried since. We re-engineered Russia's export book from importer-side filings.
Coal prices have fallen from the 2022 peak. Russia is one of the reasons: it sells at a discount to four buyers in Asia and Türkiye. Oil is unstable. If countries turn back to coal, or if a trade deal moves one of those buyers off Russian supply, demand shifts to Australia, Indonesia, and the United States. Australia runs at capacity. Price moves before tonnage.
Russia's coal market.
What this report covers.
This report maps the seaborne coal trade under HS 2701 from January 2020 to mid-June 2026. The Russian export book has been reconstructed from importer-side filings after Russia stopped reporting in 2022. The reconstruction methodology is documented in the next section.
Three trade finance exposures sit on coal books today. Buyer concentration on the Russia book: four buyers carry 64 percent of seaborne volume. Receivable squeeze on the Russia book: per-tonne price fell 45 percent from 2022 to 2024 while tonnage held. Indonesia: a new Letter of Credit beneficiary on every coal cargo from 1 January 2027.
How we did it using UN Comtrade data.
UN Comtrade Plus is the UN Statistics Division's global trade dataset. Every member state files both sides of its trade book: exports out, imports in. Each bilateral flow is reported twice. Russia ships coal to China: Russia files Russia-to-China; China files China-from-Russia. The two filings reconcile within a known margin, the difference being mostly freight and insurance (CIF includes them, FOB does not), plus year-end vessel timing.
While Russia stopped filing in 2022, the major buyers China, India, Türkiye, Korea, Vietnam continued reporting their imports from Russia by name and tonnage. Summing every importer's filing for Russia as partner, across HS 2701, reconstructs the Russian export book in CIF terms.
Validation: in 2020 and 2021 both sides reported, so we can cross-check. Russia reported $12.4 billion FOB in 2020; the buyers reported $15.8 billion CIF. In 2021, Russia reported $17.6 billion FOB; the buyers reported $27.2 billion CIF. CIF should always exceed FOB by the cost of shipping and insurance. The gaps shown ($3.4 billion in 2020, $9.6 billion in 2021) fall within the normal shipping-cost range for these flows, with the 2021 figure elevated by the global freight rate spike that year. The two sides reconcile.
IEA Coal 2024 forecast: 199 Mt
We are about 11 percent low. The IEA figure is the 2024 export forecast published in the December 2024 Coal 2024 report. Russian official sources (Ministry of Energy via CDU TEK at 196 Mt, Argus via Vedomosti at 195 Mt) sit between our floor and the IEA figure, so the cross-check holds against three independent benchmarks. The 11 percent gap is mostly Russian coal transiting Belarus and Kazakhstan and getting re-labeled at the border, plus small buyers under the reporting threshold. Treat 177 Mt as a floor figure, not a ceiling.
All figures in this article are drawn from UN Comtrade Plus reported filings under HS 2701, unless explicitly cited otherwise. Headline cross-country totals use importer-side CIF for consistency, since Russia stopped reporting in 2022. Where charts use exporter-side FOB, that basis is noted on the figure.
64 percent of Russian coal exports go to four countries: China, Korea, Türkiye, India.
A tariff, banking restriction, or FX control from any of the four buyers shifts the rest. China reintroduced a 6 percent thermal coal tariff on Russian imports in January 2024. Total Russian coal to China fell 7 percent that year per Chinese customs; within HS 2701, Chinese tonnage actually rose 28 percent. Russia absorbed the tariff in price, not in volume. A full buyer shift takes the discount out of the global pool. The replacement comes from Australia, Indonesia, or the United States. Prices rise.
Where Russia's coal went, by buyer, 2020 to 2025
Importer-reported CIF value, USD billions, from UN Comtrade Plus. Each bar is one year. Tap a segment for the figure. Six buyers absorbed roughly four-fifths of the six-year total of $148 billion. Russia self-reported its exports in 2020 and 2021 only; from 2022 the bars are reconstructed entirely from the importer side.
Largest single-country buyer of Russian coal. By a wide margin.
China reintroduced a 6 percent thermal coal tariff on Russian imports in January 2024. Russia absorbed it in price, not volume: HS 2701 tonnage rose 28 percent while value fell 27 percent. The buyer kept buying; the discount widened.
| Year | From Russia | Total imports | Russia share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | $2.46B | $16.41B | 15% |
| 2021 | $7.09B | $27.14B | 26% |
| 2022 | $11.75B | $30.28B | 39% |
| 2023 | $14.36B | $41.39B | 35% |
| 2024 | $10.48B | $40.49B | 26% |
| 2025 | Not yet filed | ||
Second-largest buyer. The steady customer across the entire window.
Korea is the steadiest counterparty on the Russia book. Continuous flow across all six years, no policy-driven shocks, narrow share band.
| Year | From Russia | Total imports | Russia share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | $1.97B | $9.50B | 21% |
| 2021 | $2.57B | $14.53B | 18% |
| 2022 | $5.70B | $28.15B | 20% |
| 2023 | $4.43B | $20.07B | 22% |
| 2024 | $2.28B | $16.40B | 14% |
| 2025 | $2.17B | $12.39B | 18% |
Third by total dollars. First by single-source concentration.
The trade finance pool serving this corridor is smaller than the pool for Türkiye's broader trade. Specialists active in it carry pricing power.
| Year | From Russia | Total imports | Russia share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | $1.15B | $2.72B | 42% |
| 2021 | $1.44B | $4.08B | 35% |
| 2022 | $3.90B | $8.17B | 48% |
| 2023 | $3.42B | $5.53B | 62% |
| 2024 | $2.55B | $5.01B | 51% |
| 2025 | $3.02B | $4.61B | 66% |
Fourth-largest buyer. Shifted heavily toward coking coal.
India's Russian buying shifted from thermal to coking coal between 2022 and 2024. Two markets, two counterparty types, one ISO code.
| Year | From Russia | Total imports | Russia share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | $0.68B | $15.87B | 4% |
| 2021 | $1.10B | $25.71B | 4% |
| 2022 | $4.28B | $48.99B | 9% |
| 2023 | $4.69B | $37.08B | 13% |
| 2024 | $3.94B | $31.53B | 13% |
| 2025 | Not yet filed | ||
Who bought what, and who stopped
Russian coal imports by buyer, by year, in USD billions. The amber-shaded column (2025) shows buyers still active right now. Dashes mark zero imports for that year. China is the largest buyer ever but has not filed 2025 figures yet at time of publication.
| Buyer | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 6-Yr Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| China | $2.46B | $7.09B | $11.75B | $14.36B | $10.48B | - | $46.14B |
| Korea | $1.97B | $2.57B | $5.70B | $4.43B | $2.28B | $2.17B | $19.11B |
| Türkiye | $1.15B | $1.44B | $3.90B | $3.42B | $2.55B | $3.02B | $15.49B |
| India | $0.68B | $1.10B | $4.28B | $4.69B | $3.94B | - | $14.69B |
| Japan | $1.82B | $2.58B | $3.52B | $0.80B | $0.19B | $0.16B | $9.07B |
| Germany | $0.99B | $2.56B | $3.56B | $0.21B | $0.05B | - | $7.37B |
| Indonesia | $0.16B | $0.19B | $0.42B | $0.83B | $0.87B | $0.90B | $3.37B |
The full buyer book, year by year.
The full bilateral dataset behind this report is loaded into the decoder below. Every reporting buyer, every year from 2020 to mid-June 2026, every flow filed against Russia under HS 2701. Filter by country, year, or flow direction to verify the concentration claim above or to inspect a specific corridor.
The decoder uses the same UN Comtrade Plus extracts as the rest of this report. Russian flows from 2022 onward are the mirror reconstruction (importer-side CIF). Other flows are the reported filings.
Open this page on desktop to explore the data.
The decoder is built for a larger screen. Open this URL on a laptop or desktop to interact with the full bilateral dataset.
The Coal Trade Decoder
Pick any major coal exporter or importer. See how the trade book moved from 2020 to 2025: who the counterparties are, how concentrated the corridor is, and where the volume actually went. Every figure is bilateral, sourced directly from buyers' UN Comtrade filings.
Switch between Exporter view (who buys from this country) and Importer view (who supplies this country). Toggle between dollar value and tonnage. The "Rest of world" segment groups all partners beyond the top tier so the dominant counterparties stay visible. Hover any segment for the underlying numbers.
All figures are importer-side CIF aggregations from buyers' filings. This basis treats every exporter consistently, including Russia which stopped filing its own exports in 2022. The exporter-side FOB equivalent runs roughly 15 to 30 percent lower depending on freight rates.
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Volume held. Price per tonne dropped 45 percent.
Russian tonnage stayed in a narrow band across six years: 206 Mt in 2020, 177 Mt in 2024. Normal year-to-year variation for any major producer.
The price moved instead. The buyer paid $77 per tonne in 2020, $122 in 2021, $229 at the 2022 peak, $180 in 2023, $127 in 2024. The same cargo earned 45 percent less in 2024 than in 2022.
Russia: tonnage held. Revenue collapsed.
Russia's coal export volume across the post-sanctions period held in a narrow 177 to 223 million tonne range. The dollar value at the other end ranged from $15.8 billion to $43.4 billion. The trade did not normalize in volume. The price normalized after the 2022 spike, and the implied per-tonne realization fell from $229 in 2022 to $127 in 2024.
For anyone pricing trade finance against the receivable, the per-tonne move matters more than the tonnage move. Independent industry reporting placed roughly half of Russian coal producers at a loss for the first nine months of 2024, the largest sectoral loss in the Russian economy that year.
Russian implied realization vs Newcastle benchmark
Russian implied $/tonne CIF (importer-reported value divided by importer-reported volume, drawn from UN Comtrade Plus) plotted against the Newcastle thermal coal benchmark (FOB Newcastle, 6000 kcal/kg, World Bank annual average). The 2022 gap is the sanctions discount: even with freight and insurance added on the Russia side, Russian coal cleared $116 below Newcastle FOB. Prices converged from 2023 onward as the Asian buyer base settled and the freight premium for Pacific-bound Russian coal stabilized.
How Europe and Japan exited Russian coal.
Brussels adopted the coal ban in April 2022; it came into force four months later. The data shows it then took eighteen months for the residual contracts to clear. The wind-down looked the same in every Western buyer. Germany peaked at $3.56 billion in 2022, fell to $0.05 billion by 2024. Japan peaked at $3.52 billion in 2022, ran to $0.19 billion by 2024. Italy and Poland went to zero from 2023. Netherlands, France, Belgium, the UK, Bulgaria, Finland, Austria all tracked the same curve. The 2022 peak is the year residual 2021-signed contracts cleared; the collapse from 2023 is those contracts running off.
European and Japanese imports of Russian coal, by year.
European countries combined bought $4.6 billion of Russian coal in 2020 and $8.6 billion in 2022. By 2024 the figure was $0.08 billion, a 99 percent decline from the 2022 peak. Japan, the only G7 country in the top six wind-down buyers, followed an identical curve. The 2022 peak across all six is the residual-contract honoring year, not the cut-off year. The EU coal embargo came into force in August 2022; the data shows it took a year and a half to clear through the pipeline.
The volume reallocated to Asia at $40 to $60 per tonne discounts to Newcastle. The Eurasian rail network connecting western Siberian mines to the Pacific terminals at Vostochny and Nakhodka is operating at or near capacity, with coal reported freezing in railcars during winter transit and stockpiles accumulating at the Far Eastern ports. Settlement cycles for exporters working on discount-driven margins lengthen accordingly.
The buyers turned to Australia. Australian exports to the six wind-down countries more than doubled, from $19 billion in 2021 to $45 billion in 2022. Indonesia, the US, Colombia, South Africa, and Canada took the rest. Australia stayed the largest supplier through 2024, even after prices fell.
EU5 and Japan coal imports by source country, 2020 to 2025
Combined coal imports of Germany, Italy, Poland, France, Netherlands, and Japan, by source country, in USD billions reported to UN Comtrade Plus. The Russia line collapses; the Australia line spikes in 2022 then settles at a structurally elevated level versus 2020. Indonesia, the US, Colombia, and South Africa all hold higher shares than they did before 2022. Tap any line for the exact figure.
The world's largest seaborne coal exporter by value. The principal beneficiary of every shift.
Newcastle, on Australia's east coast, is the world's largest coal export port. The Newcastlemax bulk carrier class is named for its berths, capped at 300 meters long and 50 meters wide. Across the six years 2020 to 2025, Australia exported $350 billion of coal under HS 2701, roughly double what either Russia ($148 billion reconstructed) or Indonesia ($184 billion) exported across the same period. The dollar gap is wider in the markets that mattered most: Australia took $146 billion of the EU5-plus-Japan import book against Indonesia's $28.6 billion. Australia is the structural replacement supplier where Russia was cut off. Volume held in a narrow band of 339 to 371 million tonnes a year. Every shock in the market - the EU embargo, the Russia discount, the Indonesia regime change to come - has played out with Australia sitting on the supply side.
The narrow band itself reflects more than capacity. A multi-year La Niña pattern brought repeated flooding to the Bowen Basin in Queensland and the Hunter Valley in New South Wales through 2021 and 2022, the country's two principal coal-producing regions. Open-cut pits required prolonged dewatering, and the rail systems linking the mines to the Queensland and Newcastle export terminals were repeatedly suspended. The constraint landed at the moment Newcastle thermal coal hit all-time highs above $400 per tonne. Physical infrastructure could not expand into the price window.
A note on basisHeadline six-year USD totals on this page (Australia $350 billion, Indonesia $184 billion, Russia $148 billion) are importer-side CIF aggregations across the full 2020 to 2025 window, including all destinations. Figures 7 and 8 use Australia's exporter-side FOB filings, which run roughly 3 to 15 percent below CIF depending on freight conditions in a given year. Both bases are defensible. They describe the same trade flow from different sides of the transaction.
But 2022 showed the limit of physical capacity. Australian coal export revenue more than doubled in a single year, from $46.6 billion in 2021 to $98.2 billion in 2022. Volume actually fell by 7.6 percent, from 366.5 Mt to 338.8 Mt. The entire $51.6 billion revenue gain was price. Australia could not respond to peak demand with more tonnage; the mines were already producing at capacity. Buyers paid whatever the market asked because there was no alternative supplier at scale.
Australia: revenue swung from $30B to $98B and back. Volume barely moved.
Australian coal exports by year. Bars show FOB value in USD billions (left axis). The line shows physical volume in million tonnes (right axis). The 2022 doubling in revenue happened without any volume increase. The whole gain was price.
Japan is the largest single destination by far: $116.9 billion of Australian coal over six years, 34 percent of the total. India is second at $57.1 billion (17 percent), Korea third at $38.6 billion (11 percent), Taiwan (filed as "Other Asia, nes" in the data) fourth at $30.7 billion. China is fifth at $26.7 billion, but the China numbers carry a particular story.
Where Australian coal went, year by year
Australian coal exports by destination country, in USD billions. The China column collapses to zero in 2021 and 2022 during the Australia-China trade dispute, then recovers from 2023. Japan dominates throughout. The 2022 column is the price peak across every line.
| Destination | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 6-Yr Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Japan | $8.1B | $15.2B | $39.5B | $23.5B | $17.9B | $12.6B | $116.9B |
| India | $5.0B | $9.9B | $15.8B | $10.9B | $8.8B | $6.7B | $57.1B |
| Korea | $3.3B | $7.0B | $11.9B | $6.9B | $5.4B | $4.2B | $38.6B |
| Taiwan | $2.4B | $4.4B | $9.6B | $6.5B | $4.7B | $3.0B | $30.7B |
| China | $6.2B | - | - | $6.1B | $8.3B | $6.1B | $26.7B |
| Vietnam | $1.4B | $1.8B | $4.4B | $2.9B | $2.5B | $2.3B | $15.4B |
| Netherlands | $0.7B | $1.4B | $3.7B | $2.3B | $2.3B | $1.4B | $11.8B |
The China column tells its own story. In 2020, Australia exported $6.2 billion of coal to China. In 2021 and 2022, that flow effectively stopped during the trade dispute between the two countries. China bought zero or near-zero Australian coal across those two years and replaced the volume with imports from elsewhere, principally Russia. Australian coal exports to China resumed in 2023 and have run at $6 to $8 billion a year since. The pattern matters for what comes next: client books in the coal market are not stable; they redirect to whoever is selling.
Russia and Australia traded client books across the period.
| From | 2020 | 2022 | 2024 | Direction |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Russia | $4.3B | $9.6B | $0.3B | EXITED |
| Australia | $10.8B | $44.9B | $23.0B | FILLED THE GAP |
| From | 2020 | 2022 | 2024 | Direction |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Russia | $2.5B | $11.8B | $10.5B | FILLED THE GAP |
| Australia | $7.9B | $0.4B | $9.5B | EXITED, RECOVERED |
Across one five-year window, Russia and Australia traded which markets they served. Russia exited EU and Japan; Australia took the demand. Australia exited China; Russia took the demand. The growth that each exporter posted in this window came in part from a market the other one vacated. Client books in coal are mobile, and they redirect quickly when supply or politics changes.
For trade finance, Australia is the only large coal exporter operating on continuous transparent reporting and standard commercial counterparties across the entire window. Russia stopped filing. Indonesia is changing the legal entity behind every invoice from January 2027. Australia is the safe default of the three biggest export streams. But the price tracks Newcastle plus the coking premium - Australia is also the most expensive default. The capacity ceiling means that any further demand shift toward Australia translates straight into prices, not into more cargo.
The world's largest coal exporter by tonnage is putting a state entity between exporter and buyer. From January 2027.
Russia is the first shock: it stopped reporting. Indonesia is the second shock, of a different kind. Indonesia shipped 406 million tonnes of coal under HS 2701 in 2024, more than any other country. Including lignite (HS 2702), the Indonesian Ministry of Energy headline figure is 555 Mt. From 1 January 2027, every Indonesian coal export will route through a new state-owned company, PT Danantara Sumberdaya Indonesia (DSI). Private miners keep their export permits, but DSI becomes the legal entity that issues the commercial invoice to the foreign buyer. The transition began on 1 June 2026; mandatory centralization is set for 1 January 2027.
This matters for trade finance because Letters of Credit and receivables financing depend on a simple question: who legally owns the cargo, and who is the LC paid to? Until now, the answer for Indonesia has been the private miner. After January 2027, it will be DSI. Credit committees cannot underwrite that change without knowing exactly how DSI will hold title, how it will handle force majeure, and how quickly it will pay through to the underlying miner. Approval times for new Indonesian thermal coal facilities have lengthened materially since the 20 May 2026 announcement.
The combined picture for 2026: two of the three biggest coal export flows in the world are now operating on non-standard terms. Russia's flow is invisible on the public record. Indonesia's flow has a new legal entity in the middle. Australia, the third, picks up the demand both shifts release but its capacity is finite.
What is happening with Indonesia (from January 2027): a new state-owned company, DSI, will issue every commercial invoice on Indonesian coal exports. The legal counterparty on every Letter of Credit changes from a known commercial miner to a state body with no track record at this scale.
The problem in both cases: the trade finance industry has to underwrite counterparties it has not seen before, under legal regimes that have not been tested at scale.
What the aggregate numbers hide.
Three observations for trade finance teams pricing coal-linked exposure.
Four buyers hold the Russia book.
China, India, Türkiye, Korea. Together they take 64 percent of every dollar Russia earned in coal exports. A single policy move from any one of them moves the rest. China's January 2024 tariff drove the discount wider without slowing volume. A larger shift takes the discount out of the global pool. Country-by-country counterparty assessment is now the discipline that used to come from bloc-level diversification.
Türkiye is a specialist corridor.
Russia supplies 51 percent of Türkiye's coal imports over six years, 66 percent in 2025. No other Russian buyer has this concentration. Fewer providers active here. Pricing reflects that.
Coking and thermal are two markets.
India's Russian coking coal volume roughly tripled in FY24 while thermal volume fell. A single "India coal imports" number hides both. Coking finances against steel mills. Thermal finances against utilities. Different counterparties, different terms.
Two of the three biggest coal exporters are operating on non-standard terms. The third has limits.
Russia stopped filing trade data in 2022, so its export book has to be reconstructed from what its buyers report. From January 2027, every Indonesian coal export will route through a new state entity, with the legal beneficiary of every Letter of Credit changing. Australia is picking up the demand both shifts release, but Australian capacity is not infinite.
What this means for anyone pricing trade finance against coal flows in 2026: Russian exporters are selling at $40 to $60 per tonne below Asian benchmarks, with about half the sector loss-making in 2024. Four buyers (China, India, Türkiye, Korea) carry 64 percent of the Russia book; a single policy change from any one of them shifts the flow. Türkiye buys 66 percent of its coal from Russia, the highest concentration of any country. Indonesia is about to add legal-entity risk to a market that previously had none.
Each of these shifts calls for trade finance work beyond standard templates. Letter of Credit beneficiaries change under Indonesia's new regime from January 2027. Bills of lading and force majeure language drafted in the previous environment will need review. Specialists who can read the data directly and rework the documentation have room to work.
For questions on how these shifts affect existing or planned trade finance exposures, contact the Ossiano Research Desk.
Sources used in this report.
- UN Comtrade Plus, United Nations Statistics Division. Bilateral trade data under HS 2701 (coal and briquettes), 2020 to 2025. Importer-side CIF and exporter-side FOB filings reconciled across both sides of each bilateral pair. Every dollar figure and tonnage figure in this article derives from this source unless explicitly cited otherwise. https://comtradeplus.un.org/
- World Bank, Commodity Markets Outlook (Pink Sheet). Monthly editions covering 2020 to mid-2026. Source of the Newcastle thermal coal annual averages (FOB Newcastle, 6000 kcal/kg) shown in Figure 4. https://www.worldbank.org/en/research/commodity-markets
- IEA, Coal 2024 - Executive Summary. Source of the 199 Mt 2024 Russia export forecast used as the aggregate cross-check against the mirror reconstruction, and of the Russian-producer-margin context (rail tariffs and sanctions discount pushing producers into losses). https://www.iea.org/reports/coal-2024/executive-summary
- IEA, Coal Mid-Year Update - July 2024, Prices section. Source of the specific $40 to $60 per tonne discount range, framed as Russian Black Sea ports versus Newcastle FOB ($60 below) and Richards Bay FOB ($40 below) between mid-2023 and mid-2024. https://www.iea.org/reports/coal-mid-year-update-july-2024/prices
- US Energy Information Administration (EIA), Today in Energy. Russia's natural gas and coal exports have been decreasing and shifting toward Asia. Source of the China-now-takes-over-half claim and the India volume growth from 9.1 to 24.8 million short tons (2020 to 2024). https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=66044
- Council Regulation (EU) 2022/576 of 8 April 2022. Amending Regulation (EU) No 833/2014. Added Article 3j prohibiting the purchase, import or transfer of coal and other solid fossil fuels originating in or exported from Russia. In force from 10 August 2022 after a 120-day wind-down period. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32022R0576
- China State Council Tariff Commission announcement, 28 December 2023. Reinstated coal import duties effective 1 January 2024 ending the duty-free period in place since 1 May 2022. Thermal coal: 6 percent for most-favoured-nation countries including Russia, Mongolia, South Africa and the United States. Coking coal: 3 percent. Australia and Indonesia exempt under their respective free trade agreements with China. https://m.mysteel.net/news/all/5046322
- Republic of Indonesia. President Prabowo Subianto address to parliament, 20 May 2026, announcing PT Danantara Sumberdaya Indonesia (DSI) as the sole-gateway export entity for coal, crude palm oil and ferroalloys. Operationalised through Government Regulation No. 24 of 2026 and Trade Ministry Regulation (Permendag) No. 15 of 2026. Phased rollout from 1 June 2026; full centralisation as sole exporter from 1 January 2027. https://en.antaranews.com/amp/news/418671
- Russian Energy Ministry analytical centre report, October 2024. Cited by Kommersant and reported by Coal Age. Source of the 51.6 percent loss-making mines figure for the first nine months of 2024 and the assessment that the Russian coal industry was approaching bankruptcy. https://www.coalage.com/departments/leading-developments/russian-coal-industry-is-hurtling-towards-collapse/
- Russian Deputy Energy Minister Dmitry Islamov, TASS interview, reported by Xinhua, 1 July 2025. Full-year 2024 figures: 112 billion rubles ($1.4 billion) in industry losses, 53 percent of coal enterprises operating at a loss, coal sector identified as the only major unprofitable Russian industry in 2024. https://english.news.cn/20250701/b22beeb898db4c658fe8a22c46e13a16/c.html
- The Coal Hub, March 2026. Q1 2026 Russian Railways operational restrictions on Far Eastern coal terminals. Port Vostochny under 50 percent restriction for 33 days in January-February, full and partial suspensions at Nakhodka, Sukhodol and Vladivostok. Source of the Eurasian-rail-to-Pacific-terminals operational state described in the article. https://thecoalhub.com/railway-bans-in-q1-2026-reduce-russian-coal-supply-to-global-market.html
- Reuters, citing Chinese General Administration of Customs, 20 January 2025. "China buys less Russian coal in 2024 despite record imports." Source of the 2024 China-from-Russia tonnage (93.86 Mt, down 7 percent year-on-year) used in the Part 2 China tariff claim. Russia was the only major Chinese supplier to register a decline in 2024 (Indonesia +8 percent, Australia +59 percent, Mongolia +19 percent in the same year). https://www.mining.com/web/china-buys-less-russian-coal-in-2024-despite-record-imports/
- The Hindu Businessline, citing BigMint, 18 April 2024. Source of the India coking coal claim: Russian coking coal shipments to India rose roughly threefold in FY24 (2.3 Mt in FY23 to 6.4 Mt in FY24), with Russia displacing Canada and Mozambique to become India's third-largest coking coal supplier behind Australia and the United States. https://www.pressreader.com/india/businessline-chennai-9WVV/20240418/282054807078543
- Indonesian Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, via Mining.com, 3 February 2025. Source of the Indonesian Ministry of Energy 555 Mt headline figure cited in Part 7. The headline is on a broader basis than the rest of this report: it sums HS 2701 (anthracite, bituminous, sub-bituminous) and HS 2702 (lignite), where the article basis throughout is HS 2701 only. Under HS 2701, Indonesia's 2024 exports are 406 Mt (UN Comtrade Plus own-filed, Indonesian BPS source). The ~150 Mt gap is the HS 2702 lignite layer that the article excludes. https://www.mining.com/web/indonesias-2024-coal-output-hits-record-high/
All bilateral figures in this report are drawn from UN Comtrade Plus. Country-level dollar values use importer-side CIF where the exporter is silent (Russia from 2022) and exporter-side FOB where both sides report. The Newcastle thermal coal benchmark used in Figure 4 is sourced from the World Bank Commodity Markets Outlook (Pink Sheet). The aggregate cross-check against IEA's 2024 Russia forecast (199 Mt) is documented in the methodology callout. Single-year customs flow figures (Chinese General Administration of Customs, Indonesian Ministry of Energy, BigMint India coking-coal series) are sourced from trade press where they capture customs reality faster and more completely than UN Comtrade filings. All other references in this list back specific named claims and dates rather than the underlying numerical data. The report does not constitute investment advice.
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