Australian outlook

摘要

Australia is the world's leading coal exporter, a position it has held since 1986. The continent continues to enjoy a sustained growth with exports breaking through the 200 million t mark for the first time in its financial year (FY) 2001-2002. Australia's black coal production attained a record level of 269.3 million t of saleable coal in the same year (Table 1). Of this, 200.6 million t was exported to more than 36 countries, with the Asian market accounting for 80 percent of exports. Japan's market share totaled 47 percent, Korea 12 percent and Taiwan 9 percent. Thermal coal exports totaled 94 million t, and metallurgical coal exports reached 106.6 million t. although Australia has more than 42 billion t of economically recoverable reserves of black coal, production for export markets is currently based on deposits in Queensland and New South Wales (Figure 1).