Coal

The most carbon intense fossil fuel, priced by region and quality, still a pillar of global electricity.

Overview

Grades split thermal for power plants and metallurgical for steelmaking, with benchmarks at Newcastle for Australian thermal, API 2 for northwest Europe, and Richards Bay for South Africa. China mines and burns around half the world coal, India second, while US and European burn decline on emissions policy and gas competition. Coal is bulky and costly to move, so freight defines the arbitrage, and prices clear through indices published by Argus and others alongside annual contract negotiations. Metallurgical coal quality, coking strength and ash, sets it apart, and its prices spike with steel cycles, as in 2022 when sanctions on Russian supply lifted premium hard coking benchmarks to records.