This is lifted from 'SMH'/'The Age' on Wednesday 29 September 2021, but its origin is Bloomberg:
Imagine the loss of face for Xi and his 98 million CCP members if that was to occur (not that it has - yet):
"...It isn’t easy to ramp up local coal supply, given the low investment in new mines in recent years, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Michelle Leung said in a note. Over-mining is also strongly prohibited amid safety concerns, she said.
Instead, China is likely to try and increase purchases from traditional sources. Jilin province will seek more coal from Indonesia, Russia and Mongolia to ensure power supply and heating, Governor Han Jun said in a statement.
Asia’s largest economy could also look farther afield to coal exporters like South Africa, Colombia, the US and Canada, putting it into competition with buyers in other parts of the world and adding more impetus to global price rallies. European electricity producers are snapping up coal as a shortage of natural gas forces utilities to burn it to cope with their own power crunch, while India is also running low on inventories of the fuel.
“Given the coal shortage in the country, we can expect China to ramp up its buying activity and most of it is likely to come from south-east Asian markets due to proximity,” said Abhinav Gupta, a dry cargo research analyst at Braemar ACM Shipbroking. “Most of these coal producers are at peak capacity, which may tighten the coal market and push up prices.”
Beijing could, of course, decide to ease the ban on Australian coal imports, although that may not be politically palatable. BI’s Leung doesn’t think it’s likely, although Ralph Leszczynski, head of research at shipbroker Banchero Costa & Co, reckons it’s a possibility. “Soon the Chinese government might be forced into easing the ban on Australian coal, as that would allow more coal to be imported and ease some pressure on domestic coal prices,” he said.
At least 17 Chinese provinces and regions making up 66 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product have announced some form of power cuts, mostly targeted at heavy industrial users, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. The reasons are two-fold - record high coal prices are causing power generators to trim output despite soaring demand, while some areas have proactively halted electricity flows to meet emissions and energy intensity goals..."
(20min delay)