Indian power sector boosts global coal industry

India's growing appetite for coal arising from a burgeoning coal-fired power sector will drive demand for coal globally, albeit marginally, says leading data and analytics company Global Data.

The company forecasts that the global demand for coal will rise marginally at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 0.6% from 6.9 billion tons in 2017 to reach 7.2 billion tons in 2022, supported in particular by rising demand from India.

global coal demand picked up marginally by 0.9% in 2017 owing to increasing demand from Russia, China, and India. Growth through 2022 will be concentrated primarily in Asia, except China. On the other hand, demand is forecasted to drop in Europe and the US. As a result of these contrasting trends, coal demand across the globe will be only marginally higher than current levels."

Coal demand in India is expected to rise from 0.89 billion tons in 2017 to 1.2 billion tons in 2022, supported by growth in coal-fired power, with generation capacity surging from 194 gigawatt (GW) in 2017 to over 250GW in 2022.

Meanwhile, coal demand in China, which grew significantly over the last two decades as a result of huge investments into coal-fired power generation, is expected to decline slightly from 3.8 billion tons to 3.7 billion tons during the forecast period.

Bajaj adds: "Since 2016, China, which is the largest consumer of coal, is cutting down its domestic coal power capacity to reduce environmental damage. This is expected to result in a marginal reduction in demand."

Source: Global Data, photo: fotalia