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There are over 8,500 coal power plants in operation worldwide and over one-third of the global electricity demand is met by coal.

Global coal consumption fell by about 3.1% in 2020 due to the pandemic. This fall was short-lived as by the end of 2020 the use of coal was 3.5% higher than in the same period in 2019.

The majority of the countries saw a dip in coal demand in 2020 except China and Indonesia, in both cases, supply increased by more than 20 Mt. On the other hand, the biggest y-o-y decreases in supply in 2020 were in the USA, the EU and India, with demand going down by 18.1%, 19.3% and 4.4% respectively.

With countries going back to normal, there has been a rise in demand for electricity. Many countries like China and India, where more than 60% of the total electricity comes from coal are staring at a coal shortage.

Chinese regulators have imposed restrictions on domestic coal production to control pollution levels, this has forced the power producers to import coal, pushing the global coal prices.

In India, with the economy recovering, the demand for electricity has shot up. The authorities were caught off guard as they were not able to foresee this rise in demand and acquire adequate stocks of coal for the power plants. The monsoon rains also continued till early October making it difficult to extract coal from the mines.

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