Shortages in the international steam-coal market now imminent
The study comes to the conclusion that supply shortages will begin to affect the overseas trade in steam coal by the year 2010, as the available supply capacity will no longer be able to keep up with the rapid growth in international demand. Supplies could well be threatened as early as 2009.
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This means that the capacity limit could be reached in a mere three years' time. In 2001 the expectation was that saturation point would be attained in five years. Whatever, the point of full capacity utilisation is drawing inexorably nearer. There is very little reserve capacity left. Unless there is massive investment in the very near future and additional export capacity is developed to ease the strain we will soon be threatened with “a perceptible supply gap that will have painful consequences for price trends”. International market prices for steam coal have already been rising steadily since 2005 because the available export capacity has been persistently deployed to about 90% of its limits – which is much more than ever before.
More details...pdf, 479 kB (German)
Source:
GVSt
www.gvst.de
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