Coking coal besides to iron ore is a basic raw material used in metallurgy. Despite to conducted works on application alternative solutions like direct iron ore reduction the main world scale technology of steel production is still blast furnace process.

It means that coke produced from coking coals still will be basic material used in steel production. The importance of coking coal in European scale is significant insofar as the European Commission at 3rd September of 2020 has entered the coking coal on list of Critical Raw Materials. European Union demand on coking coal is over 53 million tones annually. Only ~17 million tons of this raw material is produced in EU of which 11,6 million tones originate from Poland. The rest of demand is balanced by import from ia. US, Canada, Australia and Mozambique.

West Cumbria Mining

Apart from Poland, the UK is the country in which actions related to hard coal mining investment are conducted. In 2020 journal “The Guardian” was announced that in Western-Cumbria in north-east England the West Cumbria Mining in Woodhouse Colliery plant is going to mine a coking coal. It has been set up that at least 40 years the annual coking coal mining will achieve 3,1 million tones. Such actions conducted by Polish and British mine companies allow to limitation the dependence from importing such raw material away from the Europe. Despite to observed changes in world delivery chains of coal ia. caused by Chinese embargo on Australian coals import, Australia is also planning to invest in increasing the production of it . 

Mostly, it is caused by deliveries planned Chinese market redirection to Indian market. This is due to the observed increase of demand on coal as a result of steel demand because of infrastructure and construction investment acceleration in India. In this relation the authorities of Australian state – New South Wales have allowed on expansion of two existing coal mines belonging to companies: GFC Alliance and Glencore Coal.

Coal mine plant expansion that belongs to the GFC – Tahmoor Colliery located in the south-west from Sydney allow to additional mine 33 million tons of coking coal  in coming 10 years.  Additionally, state authorities concluded that, extending the period of coal mine exploitation in comparison to constructing the new one will bring the number of social, economic and environmental benefits. Planned investments will increase the mining power of mine and allow to generate additional 400 work places, and will bring the additionally profit in the form of 130 mln dollars that originate from mining royalties. Relating to the authorities decision GFC Alliance representors have concluded that these decision confirm the importance of Australia in world production of coking coal.

The another expanded plant is located near Muswellbrok on the north-west of Sydney Mangoola coal mine that belongs to Glencore Coal company. In this investment local authorities have approved the design in which plant will increase the mine to additional 52 tones of coal in coming 8 years. Additionally, among those indicated is to arranging additional 225 work places (145 by plant construction and 80 in coal mining) and generate additional 129 million dollars of income from mining royalties.

Planned investment are the next additional actions conducted by Australian authorities which main purpose is to increase the possibilities of coking coal mining and its supply on the world markets. In 2020 authorities of another Australian state – Queensland have allowed for Pembroke Resources for coal mining in Olive Downs coal mine in Bowen river basin. This decision will increase the coal mining in the next 80 years to additional of 15 million tons of coking coal annually.
Its forecasting that such actions will intensify changes in the area of main delivery chains in coking coal world trade. As announced Argusmedia portal increase on coking coal production is related to increase demand on Indian market (increase to 45% to the record sale value in Ist quarter of 2021 – to 15,18 million tons) and in European Union (increase in 23,7% to 3,17 million tons at the same time). Such changes happened as a result of coking coal export decrease from US and Canada. Nowadays, majority of American vendors are trying to increase production to meet the requirements on demand from local steel plants and Chinese market. The short-term certainly for American mine companies on Chinese market is provided by deterioration between People’s Republic of China and Australia when the economic negotiations were suspended by Chinese side.

Despite these changes Australia is actually one of the most important world producers and exporters of coking coal. The main recipients of Australian coal are Asian countries ia: India, Japan, South Korea and Turkey. Apart from them, the significant recipient of such coals are European Union and Brazil.

From the beginning, the Institute for Chemical Processing of Coal is offering a services for quality analysis of coal and coke. Such analysis is significant during preparation of coal blends for coking process. The requirements for coals used for coke production and quality requirements from obtained final product ? coke, means that its parameters should still be analyzed with application of trustworthy, standardized analytical methods. Research and expertizes in the range of evaluation of coal application and coke quality evaluation are conducted by an specialists from Department of Cokemaking Technologies; head of Department – Bartosz Mertas, bmertas@itpe.pl

More additional information?s on new coal mines can be found here: