China’s coal use to fall again as industrial output slows

Beijing / Bloomberg

China’s coal use is forecast to fall a third year as industrial output slows, adding force to President Xi Jinping’s drive to cut overcapacity and dimming the hopes of global miners for an uptick in demand by the world’s biggest consumer.
Demand will slide 2 percent this year and prices will remain at a low level, according to the state-run Xinhua News Agency, citing Xu Liang, deputy secretary general of the China Coal Industry Association. Output by the world’s largest producer will also fall by 2 percent.
Consumption has weakened amid a push to use cleaner fuels and shift a slowing economy away from heavy industry. Demand for coal, which accounted for 64 percent of the country’s total energy use last year, contracted 3.7 percent last year, following a 2.9 percent decline in 2014, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.