According to statistics released by the China National Coal Association, China's coal production rose by 3.6% from a year earlier to 2.88 billion tonnes in the first Q3 and coal sales gained 2.4% YoY to 2.78 billion tonnes.
The CNCA predicted that the output figure for the whole year of 2012 is expected to exceed over 3.7 billion tonnes given higher growth of added coal capacity than demand growth.
Statistics from the CNCA added that in the first nine months of this year, China consumed around 3.02 billion tonnes of coal, up 2.8% YoY. The growth rate was 7.5% points lower than last year. Meanwhile, China's net coal imports in September stood at around 20 million tonnes, bringing the volume for January to September to around 200 million tonnes, a YoY increase of 44%.
Besides, coal transportation by railway in the first Q3 amounted to 1.683 billion tonnes, down by 0.1% year on year. In the first eight months, coal shipment from China's major ports fell by 6.4% YoY to 410 million tonnes.