Russian coal attracts Japanese buyers

摘要

Japanese imports of Russian thermal coal rose by 31pc on the year in January-February mostly because of higher deliv- eries in January, while the country’s total coal imports dur- ing the first two months were up by just 2pc on the year at 19.88mn t, Japanese finance ministry data show (see graph and table). Japanese buyers chose Russian material as it was competitively priced compared with Australian coal. The January-February growth in Japanese receipts from Russia was considerably higher than in 2018 when the country’s imports of Russian coal rose by 4pc from 2017 to 12.2mn t. Imports of Russian thermal coal have been steadily increasing during a number of years in a row (see graph).