For demand, too many confuse the crucial difference between “growing less slowly” or remaining “buoyantly very high” versus “shrinking” or “declining.” Similar to U.S. oil demand, China’s coal consumption aligns with the first two. While it could indeed be said that Chinese coal demand has been relatively flat for a few years now, importantly, it has not been falling in the absolute sense.
For production, China’s December coal output was 2.1% higher than it was in 2017, hitting the highest level in over three years. The country started up new mines last year and then ramped up production to meet high winter demand. Due to domestic gas supply shortages in recent years, China has been softening its stance to displace coal heating with natural gas.
For imports, now a much larger portion of the supply mix, coal imports in China were up 9% last year.
Anglo Pacific (LON:APF) has a 2% NSR royalty on all mineral products sold from the area of the Maracás Menchen project to which the royalty interest relates. The project is located 250km south-west of the city of Salvador, the capital of Bahia State, Brazil and is 99.97% owned and operated by TSX Venture Exchange listed Largo Resources Limited (‘Largo’).
