China Coal Imports Crash as Economy Slows Amid Clean Power Shift
- The nation's 2015 imports fell 30%, biggest drop on record
- Regional thermal coal benchmark price trading at nine-year low
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China’s coal imports fell the most on record to the lowest in four years as a slowing economy and government efforts to curb pollution damped demand.
Overseas shipments into the world’s largest energy consumer declined about 30 percent to 204.06 million metric tons last year, the least since 2011, according to preliminary data released by the Beijing-based General Administration of Customs on Wednesday. The contraction was the largest since 2004, when Bloomberg started tracking the data. Imports in December rose a second month to 17.6 million tons.