Stable demand on global coal market

According to the report „BP Energy Outlook – 2018 edition” recently observed growth in global coal consumption will slow down rapidly until 2040. Decrease demand in China and OECD will be offset by growing demand in India and other growing countries of Asia.

Predictions on global coal market contrasts sharply with the situation in the last 25 years, during which coal was characterized by the highest growth in increasing world energy consumption.

According to „Evolutionary Transformation” scenario the slowdown will be mainly driven by situation in China where will not be any significant changes in coal consumption over the next 10 years, before demand will start to decline. Despite of this China remains the world’s largest coal market, accounting for 40% of the world’s coal consumption in 2040. Coal demand within OECD will declining, which will be largely related to environmental policies, except in the US where the main factor of declining demand will be the availability of low-cost natural gas.

On the other hand in India and other growing Asian economies demand for the coal will grow due to taking there industrialize and electrify. The largest growth coal market will be India, with a little over 10% coal demand in 2016 to around 25% by 2040.