Growth in global coal production will peak in 2023, only slightly above 2022 levels, Report informs referring to a report of the International Energy Agency (IEA) Coal 2022.
Global coal production is projected to rise by 5.4% to nearly 8.32 million tons in 2022, setting a new all-time high and well above the record set in 2019, reads the report.
Coal production in China will plateau, analysts say, while continued growth in India's production will be offset by significant declines in other regions such as the US, the EU, Indonesia and Russia.
In the EU countries, the supply and demand for coal, as the authors of the report note, will remain at a high level in the coming years. According to forecasts, in 2022 the EU countries will increase coal production by 7% to 357 million tons in 2022 and by another 2.7 million tons in 2023. At the same time, the IEA expects the EU to resume the phase-out of coal from 2024, which will lead to a significant decrease in its production.
In the Eurasian region, according to the IEA, coal production in 2022 will decrease by 4.6%, mainly due to a decrease in production in Russia by 7.4%.
China’s production will increase by 8% this year to 4.24 billion tons.
The IEA also predicts that coal production will fall to 8.22 billion tons by 2025, below 2022 levels. Production in India will exceed 1 billion tons. Indonesia, the world’s third-largest producer, will also increase production to a new high in 2022. In the US, the agency expects growth of less than 2%.