China's coking coal imports climbed 36% year on year to 6.49 million mt in August, data released Monday by the General Administration of Customs showed.
The bulk of the surge in imported volumes comes from Mongolia, which confirmed its place as China's second-largest coking coal supplier after Australia, and is slowly catching up. In August, imports from Mongolia climbed 156% year on year to 2.15 million mt, while imports in the first eight months of this year jumped 51.7% year on year to 12.79 million mt.
In the meantime, imports from Australia rose 21% year on year to 3.15 million mt in August, while over January-August total imports from Australia increased by 8% year on year to 18.78 million mt.
Canadian imports also surged, rising 59.5% year on year to 0.72 million mt in August. However, the increase was less spectacular over the January-August period during which imports from Canada were up 13.4% year on year to 4.16 million mt.
Imports from Russia were broadly stable in August, edging 0.6% higher on the year to 0.26 million mt.
Finally, exports of coking coal out of China fell 26% year on year to 56,488 mt in August, with 51,928 mt sold to South Korea and around 4,560 mt to North Korea.
