Imported coal increase rapidly to nearly 12 million tonnes

Market share structure of imported coal volume of major markets. Sketched by: T.Bình.

According to the latest information of the General Department of Vietnam Customs, in the first half of July, the whole country spent US$191 to import more than 2.2 million tonnes of coal.

From the begining of the year till July 15, the country imported nearly 23 million tonnes of coal with the total turnover of nearly US$2.17 billion.

Compared to the same period in 2018, the amount of imported coal increased by nearly 12 million tonnes, equivalent to an increase of 108 percent while the turnover increased 69.5 percent.

Production growth which was greater than the turnover showed the average value of each tonne of imported coal in this year was lower than the same period in 2018.

In particular, average import value (excluding tax) in the first months of 2019 achieved nearly US$95.2 per tonne while it was US$117 per tonne in the same period last year.

Notably, the volume of imported coal till July 15 exceeded the total import volume of the whole year in 2018 by nearly 57,000tonnes.

In terms of markets, Indonesia, Australia, Russia and China were the largest coal suppliers of Vietnam.

Indonesia held the first rank. In June alone, the whole country imported more than one million tonnes of coal from this Southeast Asian country. The total value reached US$68.6 million.

In the first half of the year, it was 7.345 million tonnes with total turnover of US$461.7 million. Meanwhile, since the begining of the year to the end of June, the country imported 7.07 million tonnes of coal from Australia with the total turnover of US$769.5 million.

The Russia market supplied 3.676 million tonnes with total turnover of US$325.2 million and China supplied nearly 590,000tonnes with total turnover of US$177.7 million.

The needs of domestic usage have increased, especially for thermal power stations, while exploited coal production was much lower thus the imports of coal are set to continue increasing.

According to the National Electricity Development Plan in 2011 - 2020, considered to 2030 (Power Development Plan VII, according to Decision 1208/QD-TTg dated July 21, 2011 of the Prime Minister), to meet the demand of the country's electricity, in 2020, Vietnam must have total capacity of 75,000 MW of power plants, of that coal-fired power plants account for 48 percent of total capacity.

By the year of 2030, the total capacity of power plants must reach 146,800 MW, and the proportion of coal-fired power plants would be raised to 51.6 percent, with a total capacity of nearly 76,000 MW, greater than the total capacity of all power plants of Vietnam by 2020.

Meanwhile, according to Vietnam's coal industry plan by 2020, considering prospects for 2030 (according to Decision 403/QD-TTg dated March 14, 2016), the demand of coal for thermal power would be 64.1 million tonnes in 2020 and increase to 131.1 million tonnes by 2030.

However, in this plan, the domestic coal mining output was estimated to reach only 47 to 50 million tonnes by 2020 and 55 to 57 million tonnes by 2030. While the exploited coal source must be reserved for other areas such as metallurgy, cement, fertiliser, chemicals and other consumers. Particularly, those four target groups were also estimated to need 25.5 million tonnes of coal by 2030.

Thus, it can be seen the total demand for coal production of the country in 2030 would be up to 157 million tonnes, while the domestic exploitation capacity was only up to 57 million tonnes. It means that Vietnam must import up to 100 million tonnes of coal by 2030.