THE government is seeking to curb rising coal prices through cooperation with coal producers and by stopping provincial restrictions on coal shipments, according to a media report yesterday.
The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China s economic planning body, called on the miners to boost self-discipline, according to a Xinhua news agency report.
Local governments, meanwhile, were told to allow the free sale of coal, as some had restricted coal sales in an effort to integrate resources, or had even required those shipping coal out of their province to apply for permission to do so, the report said.
Domestic coal prices are now higher than the international price due to the high profits of domestic coal producers. Some power-generators had to import coal, the report quoted an unnamed NDRC source as saying.
China, which was a perennial coal exporter until 2009, the first year that it imported more than it sent out, is expected to import up to 150 million tons this year.
Coal delivered to southern China currently sells for US$114 per ton.
The price of heating coal has spiked 10 percent in China since September, largely due to exchange rates and traders bets that next winter will be cold possibly as cold as last year s twice-a-century cold snap that brought snowstorms deep into the heart of southern China.
Analysts are looking for another 7 percent increase by the end of the year, which would push coal prices well above the record of US$127 a ton hit last January.
Meanwhile, China is looking at boosting tax on coal sales to somewhere in the 3 percent to 5 percent range from the current minimal 1 percent it now charges mining companies.
(SD-Agencies)
