China boosts coal production

China’s daily coal output in July grew 16% year-on-year on growing energy demand sparked by the summer heat, Reuters reported on Monday, citing data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

Overall production in July amounted to 372.66 million tons, or 12.02 million tons per day, compared to 10.13 million tons produced in July 2021.

Since the beginning of the year, the country’s output jumped 12% from last year to 2.56 billion tons.

Average coal consumption in the largest Chinese regions was more than 2.3 million tons per day early this month, or 6% higher than last year, data from Sxcoal showed.

China’s power generation surged 4.5% year-on-year to 805.9 billion kilowatt-hours, which is the fastest year-on-year growth since September 2021.

Analysts attribute the increase in power demand to high temperatures, which has led to an increased use of air conditioning. Some regions have even been forced to conduct rolling blackouts at local factories to ensure electricity supply to residential users during peak hours. However, the weather in northern China is forecast to cool in late August, which is expected to lower the demand.

The government has held several meetings over the past two months on ways to avoid power rationing. As a result, Beijing asked coal miners to boost production to accommodate surging power demand.

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