# Burning Issue: Peak Coal Close But Demand Lingers

An episode of [Switched On](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1469286286), 20 Nov 2024, 37 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/01a10738-3608-4dec-883c-ae3c00026b36/9b01f478-9311-4242-bc32-b22e00a6a677/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=6d114f63-833d-4b78-bbf5-ae3c00026b44

“It looks like coal weather today,” is an unlikely forecast, but it shouldn’t be. Coal production and consumption are linked to weather, and the return of a La Niña weather cycle has the potential to extend the lifespan of coal power assets and influence fuel switching. While peak coal demand is close, near-term drivers point to stagnation rather than a rapid decline. Developed economies are shutting thermal power assets at scale, but China is responsible for 56% of global coal consumption and continues to import and stockpile coal in vast quantities. On today’s show, Dana is joined by Fauziah Marzuki, BloombergNEF’s Global Head of Gas Markets, alongside Yumi Kim, Power Markets Associate, to discuss key findings from their recent report Coal Outlook: Hot and Cold to 2050. Complementary BNEF research on the trends driving the transition to a lower-carbon economy can be found at BNEF<GO> on the Bloomberg Terminal or on bnef.com Links to research notes from this episode: Coal Outlook: Hot and Cold to 2050 - https://www.bnef.com/insights/35205 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: This is Dana Perkins and you're listening to Switched on
[0:03] Speaker 1: the B and AF podcast. And today we talk about
[0:06] Speaker 1: the technology that started at all when it comes to
[0:09] Speaker 1: the Industrial Revolution, and that's coal. It remains persistent in
[0:13] Speaker 1: the energy system three centuries later, and globally it emits
[0:17] Speaker 1: more greenhouse gases than any other fossil fuel. Many of
[0:20] Speaker 1: the technologies designed to decarbonize the power sector and ultimately
[0:24] Speaker 1: replace coal, such as wind farms or solar power, have
[0:27] Speaker 1: also come to rely on coal to a certain extent
[0:30] Speaker 1: to manage seasonal intermittency in a way many of us
[0:33] Speaker 1: may more often associate with natural gas. So this begs
[0:36] Speaker 1: the question how often are we seeing fuel switching between
[0:40] Speaker 1: coal and gas? And in parts of the world rich
[0:43] Speaker 1: with domestic coal deposits where it can be cost competitive
[0:46] Speaker 1: to keep coal on the grid, do we still expect
[0:49] Speaker 1: to see coal fired power stations shuttered to meet climate targets.
[0:53] Speaker 1: On today's show, we also talk about the weather and
[0:56] Speaker 1: the big impact it has on coal demand as part
[0:59] Speaker 1: of the reason that coal retirements may be slowing. To
[1:02] Speaker 1: provide us with an update on coal, I am joined
[1:05] Speaker 1: by Fausia Marzuki, the global head of gas markets for
[1:08] Speaker 1: US at bn EF alongside you Me Kim, an associate
[1:11] Speaker 1: focused on power markets. They draw from research found in
[1:14] Speaker 1: a recent report titled Coal Outlook Hot and Cold to
[1:17] Speaker 1: twenty fifty. Bn EF subscribers can access this report at
[1:21] Speaker 1: BNF go on the Bloomberg terminal, or at BNF dot com.
[1:25] Speaker 1: Now let's get to talking about coal. Umi Fowls, thank
[1:38] Speaker 1: you very much for joining today to talk about coal.
[1:41] Speaker 2: Hey, Dana, thanks a lot for inviting us.
[1:43] Speaker 1: Thanks so much for having us, Dana, Coal is not
[1:45] Speaker 1: a topic that features a lot on this show. We
[1:47] Speaker 1: don't We actually don't talk about it a lot. When
[1:49] Speaker 1: we're actually talking about global emissions all of the time,
[1:52] Speaker 1: and we're talking about decarbonization all the time, and coal
[1:55] Speaker 1: really is where it all began. Why did we take
[1:58] Speaker 1: a closer look at this very important part of the
[2:02] Speaker 1: emissions pie when so much of our narrative is focused
[2:05] Speaker 1: on the transition and decarbonization opportunities, largely from a technology standpoint,
[2:11] Speaker 1: And we've done plenty of shows about CCS. This isn't
[2:14] Speaker 1: about CCS. This is about what's happening in coal right now.
[2:18] Speaker 1: Why now, Why have you taken a closer look at it.
[2:20] Speaker 3: Sure, Dana, we're talking about coal right now because it's
[2:24] Speaker 3: still a thing a lot of the industry, a lot
[2:27] Speaker 3: of the energy industry that the narrative was around, Okay,
[2:29] Speaker 3: we're going to have peak coal soon. We're stagnating, it's
[2:33] Speaker 3: coming down. It's finally coming down. We're phasing out, you know,
[2:36] Speaker 3: end of coal, end of its rain. It's not going
[2:39] Speaker 3: down without a fight. It's not abdicating just yet. Data.
[2:43] Speaker 3: So what we're actually seeing is that twenty twenty four,
[2:45] Speaker 3: there is actually that real chance that we will see
[2:49] Speaker 3: a growth in coal generation in the power sector, i e.
[2:52] Speaker 3: More emissions, you know, when we thought we were on
[2:55] Speaker 3: track to be going down with coal.
[2:58] Speaker 1: So there are definitely some details to pack here because
[3:00] Speaker 1: I think so many people who are working in renewables
[3:04] Speaker 1: or working even in gas are seeing all of these
[3:07] Speaker 1: other technologies entering and cramping out. They're moving out these
[3:12] Speaker 1: historical sources of baseload power. So we'll get to what
[3:16] Speaker 1: that is in a minute, but can you just give
[3:18] Speaker 1: me some definitions at the beginning. We've got thermal coal,
[3:20] Speaker 1: we've got metallurgical coal. What are the main terms that
[3:23] Speaker 1: we need to know as we head into this show?
[3:25] Speaker 3: Absolutely, So we're gonna use thermal coal and met coal
[3:30] Speaker 3: on this show. But thermal coal is basically the one
[3:33] Speaker 3: that you use to produce electricity, I either one in
[3:35] Speaker 3: the power sector. Now, in certain corners you will hear
[3:38] Speaker 3: this referred to as steam coal, and then you've got
[3:41] Speaker 3: metallurgical coal. You will also probably hear this as coking coal.
[3:45] Speaker 3: In some pots, this gets you coke, and coke is
[3:50] Speaker 3: basically what you put in the blast furnaces for steel making.
[3:54] Speaker 1: So renewable energy capacity is growing, and in developed economies,
[3:58] Speaker 1: coal based power generation has largely been on the decline.
[4:01] Speaker 1: So given this, what does coal demand look like in
[4:05] Speaker 1: twenty twenty four? Yeah?
[4:06] Speaker 2: Sure, So it's definitely true that coal generation has been
[4:10] Speaker 2: declining in developed countries like Europe and also in US,
[4:14] Speaker 2: and in fact, coal retirements have been accelerating since the
[4:19] Speaker 2: COVID years, and that's really powered by cheaper renewables, carbon
[4:23] Speaker 2: prices and phaseout policies in those economies. But that's only
[4:28] Speaker 2: a really small part of the bigger global picture. To
[4:31] Speaker 2: understand coal, we need to understand Asia, which takes more
[4:35] Speaker 2: than eighty percent of global coal generation. So if you
[4:39] Speaker 2: take a look at India, and Southeast Asia, for example,
[4:42] Speaker 2: power from coal is still on the rise from their
[4:45] Speaker 2: growing economies and warmer weather. But when it comes to China,
[4:49] Speaker 2: the biggest consumer of coal, their coal demand did actually
[4:52] Speaker 2: start to slow down this year, and that's mainly because
[4:55] Speaker 2: of the increasing solar and wind products and extreme rainfall
[4:59] Speaker 2: that filled up their hydro reservoirs. So this gives us
[5:02] Speaker 2: a hope that coal demand could finally stagnate this year
[5:06] Speaker 2: after years of growth. But ultimately I think coal script
[5:10] Speaker 2: on power is really difficult to shake off, and that's
[5:13] Speaker 2: because both power demand and hydrogeneration is becoming really volatile
[5:18] Speaker 2: from climate change. In fact, if you ask me this
[5:21] Speaker 2: question about coal demand picking this year about a months ago,
[5:25] Speaker 2: I would have said that core generation might marginally drop
[5:27] Speaker 2: this year if strong winfall in China continues. But actually,
[5:31] Speaker 2: as of today, I'm not really confident to say that
[5:33] Speaker 2: anymore because recently hydro output in China showed a sudden
[5:38] Speaker 2: drop and that means that cold plan needs to ramp
[5:41] Speaker 2: up and fill that gap. So this kind of outlook
[5:44] Speaker 2: for hydro output and also cooling them and is always
[5:47] Speaker 2: changing depending on the weather, and this is making it
[5:50] Speaker 2: really increasingly difficult to predict what will happen to coal demand,
[5:53] Speaker 2: and in this kind of uncertainty, coal is unfortunately sometimes
[5:58] Speaker 2: the only major source of secure power in emerging economies,
[6:02] Speaker 2: and that's why we're still seeing China stockpiling coal at
[6:06] Speaker 2: record high levels just so they can prepare for extreme
[6:08] Speaker 2: weather events like that. So although we're still seeing signs
[6:13] Speaker 2: of core demands deignating this year, we're also not expecting
[6:17] Speaker 2: it to rapidly drop bighter. That's particularly our learning to
[6:20] Speaker 2: me as the world is already breaching the one point
[6:23] Speaker 2: in five degree warming subviider or Paris agreement, and core
[6:27] Speaker 2: generation needs to come down fast to achieve net zero,
[6:30] Speaker 2: but it's just not happening yet.
[6:32] Speaker 1: I mean, that's a really interesting connection that you just drew,
[6:34] Speaker 1: because ultimately decarbonization leads to lower warming scenario, which then
[6:42] Speaker 1: leads to more predictable weather on a longer term basis
[6:45] Speaker 1: so climate. But if the weather is unpredictable, then things
[6:48] Speaker 1: like wind and hydropower and the disruption to the water
[6:51] Speaker 1: cycle become even more unpredictable than they weren't before, meaning
[6:56] Speaker 1: that coal has this void to fill. So you talk
[7:00] Speaker 1: about the fact that China has been stockpiling some of
[7:02] Speaker 1: this in order to be able to whether the storm
[7:05] Speaker 1: no pun intended.
[7:06] Speaker 3: What does that.
[7:07] Speaker 1: Really mean then, for on the supply side and for
[7:09] Speaker 1: pricing for those who are selling coal in China, is
[7:12] Speaker 1: that market remained reasonably buoyant because of the stockpiling or
[7:18] Speaker 1: is it fluctuating wildly?
[7:19] Speaker 3: Right?
[7:20] Speaker 2: So we're talking quite a lot about China here because
[7:24] Speaker 2: China's influence and coal trade is so really strong. It's
[7:28] Speaker 2: still the largest producer and import at the same time,
[7:32] Speaker 2: so it's influencing coal markets is still really strong. And
[7:35] Speaker 2: India comes next since its production and demand are growing
[7:39] Speaker 2: at a really fast pace. So both China and India
[7:42] Speaker 2: are prioritizing domestic production for energy security reasons. But this year,
[7:47] Speaker 2: international prices are becoming actually cheaper since the energy crisis era,
[7:53] Speaker 2: and we've seen China and India importing a lot to
[7:56] Speaker 2: take advantage of those cheaper prices, and hence that's why
[7:59] Speaker 2: we're seeing a lot of stock pilot efforts from these countries,
[8:03] Speaker 2: and that's a.
[8:04] Speaker 1: Great use for major exporters.
[8:06] Speaker 2: So Indonesia, Australia, South Africa, and the US all boosted
[8:11] Speaker 2: their overseas shipments as they see more demand coming from
[8:14] Speaker 2: China and India. But when it comes to prices, the
[8:17] Speaker 2: ripple effect on different indexes are very different. And that's
[8:21] Speaker 2: because different producers around the world have different quality in coal,
[8:26] Speaker 2: and we call that a colorific value in coal. So
[8:29] Speaker 2: it's quite different from the ellen g world, for example,
[8:32] Speaker 2: where the quality is more standardized. And that's why in
[8:36] Speaker 2: the coal market it's common to see regional indexes having.
[8:40] Speaker 1: Very different trends.
[8:41] Speaker 2: So for Indonesia, it's the main producer of lower quality
[8:46] Speaker 2: coal and they mainly export to China and India. And
[8:49] Speaker 2: because the Indonesian government has been constantly boosting the production
[8:53] Speaker 2: level in the past couple of years, pricing actually have
[8:56] Speaker 2: been dropping so far in twenty twenty four. And at
[9:00] Speaker 2: the same time, Indonaesans supply have to compete with local
[9:03] Speaker 2: production from China and India, so that causes some downward
[9:07] Speaker 2: pressure on their prices. The trend is quite different when
[9:10] Speaker 2: it comes to higher quality coals, so that's markets like
[9:14] Speaker 2: Australia and South Africa and also Colombia. So here the
[9:17] Speaker 2: major consumers are Japan, Korea and some parts of Europe.
[9:22] Speaker 2: China and India does import higher quality coal as well.
[9:26] Speaker 2: But it is those developed countries who are oftentimes willing
[9:30] Speaker 2: to pay higher prices, and therefore they set the market
[9:34] Speaker 2: price for higher quality coal. And in those developed markets,
[9:37] Speaker 2: fuel switching between cool and gas is one of the
[9:40] Speaker 2: main price drivers. And because gas prices have been rising
[9:44] Speaker 2: these days, coal prices for higher quality are also increasing.
[9:48] Speaker 1: So you had mentioned fuel switching, and I'd love to
[9:51] Speaker 1: get into that. Natural gas is often used for fuel
[9:53] Speaker 1: switching with a variety of different sources. What is the
[9:56] Speaker 1: role that coal plays and how does it interact with
[9:59] Speaker 1: gas or maybe compete with gas when it comes to
[10:02] Speaker 1: fuel switching.
[10:03] Speaker 2: That's a good question. So first of all, for coal
[10:07] Speaker 2: to gas fuel switching or gas to coal field switching
[10:10] Speaker 2: to take place, there's mainly two requirements, which is that
[10:14] Speaker 2: a country needs to have a significant gas and coal
[10:17] Speaker 2: fleet and at the same time, the gas prices need
[10:20] Speaker 2: to be competitive with the coal prices. So those two
[10:24] Speaker 2: requirements are more common in develop economies like Northwest Europe,
[10:28] Speaker 2: the US, and Japan and Korea in Asia. So if
[10:32] Speaker 2: gas prices drop relatively lower compared with coal prices, then
[10:37] Speaker 2: that makes gas plans more economical to run compared with
[10:40] Speaker 2: coal plants. Well, that's unfortunately not the case right now
[10:44] Speaker 2: because gas prices are rising from supply risk, so currently
[10:48] Speaker 2: there's less potential for gas generation to be cheaper than coal,
[10:52] Speaker 2: and these developed countries will need to continue to burn
[10:55] Speaker 2: coal instead of gas unless the gas prices decline further.
[10:59] Speaker 2: And when it comes to other emerging markets like China,
[11:02] Speaker 2: we don't talk about coal to gas switching here because
[11:06] Speaker 2: it doesn't meet the requirements that I mentioned earlier, So
[11:08] Speaker 2: they don't have significant gas fleet or competitive gas prices
[11:13] Speaker 2: compared with coal. They are definitely a growing market for gas,
[11:17] Speaker 2: but when we look at their entire power mix, it's
[11:19] Speaker 2: still very much dominated by coal, and because most of
[11:22] Speaker 2: their coal supply, again comes from their local production, that's
[11:26] Speaker 2: why coal generation continues to be the base load power
[11:30] Speaker 2: in China, India and Southeast Asia.
[11:33] Speaker 1: So FOOS is somebody who spent so much of your
[11:35] Speaker 1: career focused on the gas sector. Can you talk about
[11:37] Speaker 1: the interplay between coal and gas and essentially how closive
[11:41] Speaker 1: kin are they and should I really be thinking about
[11:45] Speaker 1: coal as something that's more competitive with gas than it
[11:49] Speaker 1: is actually with nuclear?
[11:50] Speaker 3: Great that you say sort of like kin, because I
[11:53] Speaker 3: think gas has been waiting in the wings for a
[11:55] Speaker 3: really long time to wait for its time to dislodge coal,
[11:59] Speaker 3: and when coals out of the system, gas is able
[12:02] Speaker 3: to rain. We're not sure that's exactly going to happen.
[12:06] Speaker 3: Coal still sticking around, you know. First thing that I'll
[12:08] Speaker 3: say is just that, yes, we think about it as
[12:10] Speaker 3: baseload a lot of time, but both of these technologies
[12:14] Speaker 3: geez are indeed flexible. So the gas industry always says,
[12:18] Speaker 3: you know, okay, you know, we're the good solution to
[12:20] Speaker 3: solve intermittency with renewables. That's why you should switch to gas. Sorry, folks,
[12:26] Speaker 3: Coal actually also helps intermittency. It is actually flexible in
[12:30] Speaker 3: that sense as well, so it can actually do the
[12:33] Speaker 3: same thing that gas does in a power sector. It's
[12:36] Speaker 3: just that for coal you can probably store it a
[12:39] Speaker 3: little longer than gas, depending on your infrastructure. So that's
[12:42] Speaker 3: actually why that we've seen and my colleague you Mei's
[12:45] Speaker 3: talked about this that coal was the one that was
[12:47] Speaker 3: switched on to be that flexible source of power when
[12:51] Speaker 3: it was needed to help meet that incremental demand, be
[12:54] Speaker 3: it for weather reasons or be it for whatever other reasons.
[12:56] Speaker 3: So what does this all mean for gas? What does
[12:59] Speaker 3: coal not peaking yet mean for gas. It means that
[13:03] Speaker 3: gas can't necessarily be that replacement baseload in all of
[13:09] Speaker 3: these different countries. So, for example, if you're talking about coal,
[13:12] Speaker 3: you got to always talk about China and it is
[13:15] Speaker 3: probably not worth gas is time to try to dislodge
[13:21] Speaker 3: coal baseload power generation in a place like China where
[13:25] Speaker 3: they've got abundant, cheap coal that they can just use.
[13:28] Speaker 3: So in terms of the interplay between the two, it's
[13:33] Speaker 3: everything from because the two have similar characteristics. It's just
[13:37] Speaker 3: that one has less emissions, and that's what the gas
[13:39] Speaker 3: industry tuts as why it should be the solution as
[13:42] Speaker 3: the bridging fuel for the energy transition, especially in the
[13:45] Speaker 3: power sector. You start thinking about how these two are
[13:48] Speaker 3: going to compete with each other. That also means that
[13:51] Speaker 3: pricing between these two are highly correlated to each other.
[13:55] Speaker 3: It also means that where you have a lot of coal,
[13:58] Speaker 3: maybe there's not much room for gas. Where you have
[14:00] Speaker 3: a lot of gas, coal doesn't matter anymore. So how
[14:03] Speaker 3: coal pans out is going to almost decide or influence
[14:08] Speaker 3: what the role of gas is going to be in
[14:09] Speaker 3: the power sector.
[14:10] Speaker 1: And so by pricing you mean there you know, at
[14:13] Speaker 1: odds with one another. So when one is up, the
[14:14] Speaker 1: other is down. And so the market in this fuel
[14:17] Speaker 1: switching space is essentially trying to move itself to the
[14:20] Speaker 1: most beneficial or lowest price at the time.
[14:23] Speaker 3: Absolutely, so that's the whole fuel switching idea now for
[14:27] Speaker 3: so this is specifically for a thermal coal. Now, each
[14:30] Speaker 3: commodity will still have its own unique supply demand fundamentals
[14:35] Speaker 3: which will influence price, but because of the switching potential
[14:39] Speaker 3: between the two, because they are both equally flexible, because
[14:42] Speaker 3: they are both integrated into power systems in the same
[14:46] Speaker 3: manner for a lot of these major economies, that's why
[14:49] Speaker 3: their prices tend to be somewhat influence influential of each other.
[14:55] Speaker 3: Mostly spot traded coal can be influenced by gas par
[15:00] Speaker 3: and we saw a lot of that during the energy
[15:02] Speaker 3: crisis data when gas prices absolutely soared and gas was
[15:07] Speaker 3: no longer affordable, so the only alternative in the power
[15:11] Speaker 3: sector was call those coal prices equally shot up, even
[15:16] Speaker 3: though there wasn't as big of a disruption to coal
[15:19] Speaker 3: trade flows. Now, yes, Russian coal was sanctioned too, but
[15:23] Speaker 3: Russian gas was a bigger thing.
[15:25] Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit more about the volatility
[15:27] Speaker 1: of the price of coal, and is that something that
[15:29] Speaker 1: is moving wildly like gases. I mean, you just said
[15:33] Speaker 1: that it also went way up during what we were
[15:35] Speaker 1: referring to many people in the world are saying was
[15:38] Speaker 1: a energy crisis, and over the winter of twenty twenty
[15:41] Speaker 1: two was call more volatile than gas or about the same.
[15:46] Speaker 3: Gas with far more volatile for a number of reasons.
[15:50] Speaker 3: We'll get into a little bit more financial markets, liquidity stuff.
[15:53] Speaker 3: There's a lot more people trading gas financial contracts out there,
[15:57] Speaker 3: which actually starts influencing prices a lot more does have,
[16:01] Speaker 3: you know, so sort of the less players playing in
[16:04] Speaker 3: the financial space for call, and it's a lot more
[16:07] Speaker 3: you know, it's a lot more dictated by the physical
[16:10] Speaker 3: market with a lot less speculation. So yes, less volatile.
[16:13] Speaker 3: Both of these benchmarks, both of these global matchboks have
[16:16] Speaker 3: somewhat stabilized, but they flattened out a little bit. They
[16:21] Speaker 3: have come down now the usual volatility with seasons and
[16:25] Speaker 3: some demand changes, sure that still happens, but both of
[16:29] Speaker 3: them have largely stabilized aside from your usual variations. But
[16:34] Speaker 3: in terms of call prices, fluctuating, very dependent on quite frankly,
[16:41] Speaker 3: we'll say again China and a little bit of weather too.
[16:44] Speaker 2: Actually, if I can add on to what Foules just said,
[16:50] Speaker 2: so big consumers like China and India, they source quite
[16:53] Speaker 2: a lot from their domestic production and at the same
[16:56] Speaker 2: time those countries enter long term contracts with the peaks
[16:59] Speaker 2: of like Indonesia and also Australia. So that's why the
[17:04] Speaker 2: overall international prices are relatively less full at all in
[17:08] Speaker 2: coal markets compared with gas.
[17:10] Speaker 1: So then actually, before we go to weather, let's go
[17:13] Speaker 1: to trade, and let's talk about this very much as
[17:15] Speaker 1: an actively traded commodity. Has that trade really changed because
[17:20] Speaker 1: we've certainly seen that with gas, We've seen the advent
[17:22] Speaker 1: of gas pipelines becoming liquefied natural gas in how ships
[17:25] Speaker 1: are actually running that industry because of all of diversity
[17:29] Speaker 1: and energy sources that are actually now in the power sector.
[17:33] Speaker 1: Are we seeing a change to the flows into the
[17:35] Speaker 1: trades or even for policy reasons, and you'd already mentioned sanctions,
[17:39] Speaker 1: what's happening with coal trade and how has the world
[17:41] Speaker 1: changed kind where is it now? For everybody who's not
[17:44] Speaker 1: familiar with coal, give us an idea where it's coming from,
[17:47] Speaker 1: where it's going.
[17:48] Speaker 3: Sure thing.
[17:49] Speaker 1: Okay.
[17:49] Speaker 3: So the interesting one to note that's actually kind of
[17:52] Speaker 3: happened in the last year plus or so is that
[17:57] Speaker 3: China actually banned Australian call for a little bit of time.
[18:02] Speaker 3: That's actually now with diplomatic relationships easing, that trade flow
[18:06] Speaker 3: has actually resumed. Now when Australian call wasn't going to
[18:11] Speaker 3: China anymore, that Australian coal needed to go other places
[18:14] Speaker 3: and China needed to find replacement call. So Australian calls
[18:19] Speaker 3: started going to other North Asian markets, so it went
[18:23] Speaker 3: more of it went to Japan, and then China started
[18:26] Speaker 3: taking a whole bunch more Indonesian call and neighboring ones
[18:30] Speaker 3: and even to such an extent some of the South
[18:33] Speaker 3: African call. So now when this happens and then you
[18:35] Speaker 3: actually put later, you've got Russian coal trade flows being impacted,
[18:40] Speaker 3: you've got South African call and US call actually now
[18:44] Speaker 3: having to also recalibrate and kind of cover a little bit.
[18:47] Speaker 3: So when Australia couldn't send to China, it was taking
[18:51] Speaker 3: a little bit more coal that was coming from South
[18:54] Speaker 3: Africa and Indonesia. That couldn't go to India anymore. So
[18:58] Speaker 3: now India suddenly taking coal a little bit more coal
[19:01] Speaker 3: from Baltimore, so it's going it can go that far.
[19:05] Speaker 3: I mean, Colombian coal can actually come out to Asia
[19:09] Speaker 3: now or at least that it was coming out to
[19:11] Speaker 3: Asia in certain ways. So it's really interesting to see
[19:15] Speaker 3: how these can change. And this dramatically impacts price. When
[19:18] Speaker 3: you try to send Colombian coal all the way to Asia,
[19:20] Speaker 3: that suddenly gets a lot more expensive when you start
[19:22] Speaker 3: adding your shipping. And now, especially also with Europe on
[19:26] Speaker 3: a general downward trajectory for coal consumption, all the coal
[19:30] Speaker 3: that used to go to Europe needs to go somewhere
[19:32] Speaker 3: else because they haven't necessarily brought down production yet of
[19:36] Speaker 3: a supply of coal is not necessarily down either, so
[19:39] Speaker 3: it's going somewhere.
[19:40] Speaker 1: So it's just redistributing to other parts of the world.
[19:44] Speaker 1: So one of the things that you me referenced was
[19:46] Speaker 1: how China is this big consumer of coal and they
[19:51] Speaker 1: do stockpilt by more than they need on an annual basis.
[19:54] Speaker 1: Is that something that other parts of the world actually
[19:57] Speaker 1: do And is this practice of actually stockpiling what drives
[20:00] Speaker 1: is it in order to take advantage of what is
[20:02] Speaker 1: perceived to be lower prices. Is it for energy security?
[20:05] Speaker 1: Where does stockpiling come in the coal space?
[20:07] Speaker 3: All of the above data, So China, it went through
[20:11] Speaker 3: a rough period where it had a lot of blackouts
[20:13] Speaker 3: and then there was a lot of pressure on the
[20:15] Speaker 3: government to ensure there was good supply of coal or
[20:19] Speaker 3: energy in that sense. So they stockpiled a whole bunch,
[20:23] Speaker 3: got a lot of intonation coal. They made nice for
[20:26] Speaker 3: the Australians. Again, they're taking their coal and they're also
[20:30] Speaker 3: producing a whole lot more coal, right, so they're increasing
[20:33] Speaker 3: production in the Shanxi province that's actually been up. But
[20:37] Speaker 3: we'll come back to weather. But because there were some
[20:39] Speaker 3: floods there, they had to reduce some of the production.
[20:41] Speaker 3: But so all of the levers were being pulled. And
[20:44] Speaker 3: what made it even more perfect for them was that
[20:47] Speaker 3: coal prices were coming down. So they were absolutely probably
[20:51] Speaker 3: taking advantage of the situation that coal prices were on
[20:55] Speaker 3: a declining trend. Another thing, so so far this whole time,
[20:59] Speaker 3: we've been talking about the seaborne trade of coal as well,
[21:02] Speaker 3: and that thermal coal more specifically, but in general, coal
[21:06] Speaker 3: stockpiles for China. What was one thing that really was
[21:10] Speaker 3: interesting is that last year there was a huge increase
[21:14] Speaker 3: in Mongolian coal production. Mongolia kind of doesn't have anywhere
[21:19] Speaker 3: else to send that coal to other than China through rail,
[21:22] Speaker 3: so China also had this huge receipt of Mongolian coal
[21:27] Speaker 3: production that also helped it have all these stockpiles, and
[21:32] Speaker 3: the you know, the big other thing to think about
[21:34] Speaker 3: is that China's economy, if it doesn't actually recover to
[21:38] Speaker 3: that same extent.
[21:39] Speaker 2: Is it going to use all this coal?
[21:40] Speaker 3: Is another thing. So stockpiles have absolutely been higher than
[21:45] Speaker 3: we've seen in the last couple of years, and it's
[21:48] Speaker 3: probably not going to go down that much because the
[21:51] Speaker 3: incremental increase in coal generation is still not going to
[21:55] Speaker 3: be so much so because as Yumias mentioned, we're seeing
[21:58] Speaker 3: that boom in renewable energy generation. So a lot of
[22:02] Speaker 3: that additional demand can be met by renewables, it's just
[22:07] Speaker 3: lots of that base generation that is needed.
[22:11] Speaker 1: So we had already discussed how important coal can be
[22:13] Speaker 1: as a form of baseload power, and when we think
[22:15] Speaker 1: about seasonal intermittency, which is something that is certainly accompanying
[22:20] Speaker 1: renewable energy, coal can fill that place, and that is
[22:24] Speaker 1: one of the areas where stockpiling comes in. Now, I
[22:28] Speaker 1: want to know when it comes to other extreme events,
[22:32] Speaker 1: in addition to whether it's winter or whether it's summer,
[22:35] Speaker 1: what does the role coal play and our countries seeing
[22:38] Speaker 1: that as a form of flexibility, maybe not on an
[22:42] Speaker 1: hourly basis, but on a daily basis when you have
[22:45] Speaker 1: things like you know you see hurricanes and typhoons and
[22:50] Speaker 1: various extreme weather events.
[22:51] Speaker 3: Great question, Dana, thank you. Yes, as somebody from the
[22:54] Speaker 3: gas industry, usually when you talk to me about weather,
[22:57] Speaker 3: I'm like, is it going to be cold this winter?
[22:59] Speaker 3: Right now, increasingly the gas industry needs to worry about
[23:03] Speaker 3: is it going to be hot this summer? Because that's
[23:06] Speaker 3: when I need more gas or at least more power
[23:09] Speaker 3: for air conditioning. It was a huge thing in Southeast
[23:12] Speaker 3: Asia this year. During the summer it got particularly hot.
[23:16] Speaker 3: We saw a lot more LNG being needed in places
[23:19] Speaker 3: like Thailand. Most specifically, the biggest extreme that we saw
[23:23] Speaker 3: was actually in India where we saw record high temperatures.
[23:27] Speaker 3: So they needed a whole lot more conditioning and a
[23:30] Speaker 3: whole lot more power. They had to turn to coal.
[23:32] Speaker 3: Now similarly, they increased production, they imported more lots of
[23:36] Speaker 3: mandates came out to help stimulate this and make sure
[23:38] Speaker 3: there was enough coal supply. One of the reasons why
[23:41] Speaker 3: we also saw Chinese coal generation increase the way it
[23:46] Speaker 3: did was actually due to droughts. To ass as an extent, now,
[23:50] Speaker 3: for economies that particularly have a lot of hydro generation,
[23:54] Speaker 3: when you have a drought and you mentioned hydro earlier
[23:57] Speaker 3: as one of your main baseload ones, when you don't
[23:59] Speaker 3: have you don't have hydro, you need to replace that
[24:02] Speaker 3: with something, and a lot of times you do turn
[24:04] Speaker 3: to coal, at least in China, you do now places
[24:08] Speaker 3: like Spain where they had where you know, when they
[24:10] Speaker 3: saw periods of low hydro, they had to turn to gas.
[24:13] Speaker 3: So rain in that sense, you know, can have that
[24:17] Speaker 3: impact as it impacts hydrogeneration and hence the other alternative
[24:21] Speaker 3: base low generation. Rain's also not good for open coal
[24:26] Speaker 3: pit mines. When it rains, it floods and you can't
[24:29] Speaker 3: get that coal out, or your coal's wet and you
[24:31] Speaker 3: can't burn it. What we're also looking at is just
[24:35] Speaker 3: the impact of lanina and whether you're going to see
[24:38] Speaker 3: a lot more rain this time around or at least
[24:42] Speaker 3: coming soon, and that might actually impact coal production in
[24:46] Speaker 3: some parts of the world, in Australia, Indonesia to a
[24:49] Speaker 3: cutain extent. I mean we're even talking it might impact
[24:51] Speaker 3: river levels, so on coal that you put on barges
[24:54] Speaker 3: in all of these inland rivers. You know, these are
[24:56] Speaker 3: things that can actually impact coal. These are also weather
[25:01] Speaker 3: implications that go further than the usual fundamentals that we
[25:05] Speaker 3: think about coal. We never really used to think about
[25:10] Speaker 3: rain being a consideration for coal dynamics, but it absolutely
[25:15] Speaker 3: is because it's a thing for China, and because China
[25:17] Speaker 3: is the biggest driver of the coal market. It's a
[25:19] Speaker 3: thing for coal.
[25:20] Speaker 1: So very connected to the natural world. These market dynamics,
[25:24] Speaker 1: as many physical commodities are. Now let's make a pivot
[25:27] Speaker 1: though to finance and some of the drivers for coal retirements.
[25:32] Speaker 1: Have we seen a trend around divestment and around actively
[25:38] Speaker 1: managing investment portfolios to actually see less coal in them
[25:42] Speaker 1: because it is a big source of emissions globally, and
[25:45] Speaker 1: we've seen in certain parts of the world. So you're
[25:48] Speaker 1: in the UK, earlier this year we saw the last
[25:50] Speaker 1: coal fired power station shut down in the country. Over
[25:54] Speaker 1: half of the coal infrastructure in the US has actually
[25:56] Speaker 1: been retired. Are we seeing this in other parts of
[25:58] Speaker 1: the world as well? And is it burred on by finance?
[26:02] Speaker 3: So there are a couple things here. There's divestments and
[26:06] Speaker 3: then there's phase outs. We're gonna talk about phase outs first.
[26:09] Speaker 3: So yay for the US. They are actually retiring faster
[26:15] Speaker 3: than the expectations. So when you look at the EIA's
[26:18] Speaker 3: projections for coal retirements, B and EF analysis has actually
[26:22] Speaker 3: shown that on average, we are retiring the US fleet
[26:26] Speaker 3: earlier than expected. In places like Germany, for example, which
[26:30] Speaker 3: had very clear phase out policies, that was kind of
[26:34] Speaker 3: put on holds for a little bit when the energy
[26:37] Speaker 3: crisis starts. It it's not back on track and they
[26:39] Speaker 3: should be, you know, and then they should be meeting
[26:41] Speaker 3: their targets to phase out there coal by twenty thirty eight.
[26:44] Speaker 3: In other places, though, we'll take South Africa as an example,
[26:48] Speaker 3: a very heavy coal based power system again from domestic resources.
[26:53] Speaker 3: You got a lot of blackouts in South Africa happening, right.
[26:57] Speaker 3: So when it came to having promised to phase out
[27:03] Speaker 3: some particular coal plants, which actually was conditional on a
[27:06] Speaker 3: climate financing pack, that South Africa had this was the JETPE,
[27:09] Speaker 3: the Just Energy Transition Partnership, So when it came to
[27:12] Speaker 3: that they've actually had they're trying to negotiate delaying some
[27:16] Speaker 3: of those phase outs in order to ensure that there
[27:19] Speaker 3: will be enough power to actually power homes because be
[27:23] Speaker 3: it renewables are not growing fast enough, or because there
[27:26] Speaker 3: just isn't enough replacement capacity to ensure that stability in power.
[27:32] Speaker 3: Some of these things are getting delayed now. It's also
[27:35] Speaker 3: something that we do need to watch out for now.
[27:37] Speaker 3: As much as that our plans to phase out by
[27:40] Speaker 3: X year for a lot of coal plants, there are
[27:43] Speaker 3: drivers that may actually see the extension of coal plants.
[27:47] Speaker 3: It's not necessarily long term. They may be a sort
[27:50] Speaker 3: of like a very near term, short term fix. But
[27:53] Speaker 3: we're even seeing that in places like Australia. So Australia
[27:56] Speaker 3: actually delayed the closure of one of its largest coal plants,
[28:00] Speaker 3: and that was really the government coming in and giving
[28:04] Speaker 3: financial support to keep that plant open again, a bit
[28:08] Speaker 3: of a just an insurance policy really to make sure
[28:11] Speaker 3: that there would be enough power capacity if they ever
[28:16] Speaker 3: needed it. It didn't necessarily mean it was going to run.
[28:19] Speaker 3: They just said they won't turn it off just yet.
[28:22] Speaker 1: So in the circumstance of Australia and in South Africa,
[28:25] Speaker 1: this is a policy decision in order to increase security
[28:28] Speaker 1: of supply. How has the financial services industry responded to it, though,
[28:32] Speaker 1: and how have investors responded to it. Has it been
[28:34] Speaker 1: essentially relegated to a policy decision or has it been
[28:38] Speaker 1: even in transition focused investors, have they embraced this kind
[28:43] Speaker 1: of way of looking at coal phase down rather than
[28:46] Speaker 1: immediate phase out. Absolutely?
[28:48] Speaker 3: Yeh. So we're seeing a lot of novel ways to
[28:50] Speaker 3: incentivize CaAl phase out. The one thing I want to
[28:53] Speaker 3: actually bring up, and it's probably less known to people
[28:56] Speaker 3: outside of the region, but that a new and new
[28:59] Speaker 3: and incentive started in Singapore that had to do with
[29:02] Speaker 3: transition credits. And I think this one's really interesting. Like
[29:05] Speaker 3: carbon offsets, it's a mechanism for you to compensate these
[29:11] Speaker 3: power plants for the potential loss revenue for them closing early.
[29:16] Speaker 3: Now it's gotten a lot of interest how it will
[29:22] Speaker 3: work in practice, whether we're going to you know, whether
[29:24] Speaker 3: it's really going to take off. So they've identified some
[29:27] Speaker 3: call facilities, but we're not going to see that you know,
[29:29] Speaker 3: we're not going to see the results of that for
[29:30] Speaker 3: a while, but they're thinking about interesting ways to incentivize
[29:35] Speaker 3: call phase out or call closures, because let's face it,
[29:39] Speaker 3: you need to compensate people or you need to actually
[29:43] Speaker 3: you know, it's all about making money to a set
[29:46] Speaker 3: and excess, so you need to other compensate people for
[29:49] Speaker 3: such early closures. And also when we look at it
[29:51] Speaker 3: from an investor's point of view, let's look at it.
[29:54] Speaker 3: So now now let's turn to divestments, Stina, when we
[29:56] Speaker 3: look at a company, a diversified mining company that has
[29:59] Speaker 3: shared older pressure to say, I don't like your coal assets,
[30:02] Speaker 3: get rid of them. Do you really want to get
[30:04] Speaker 3: rid of your cash cows? So this is actually what's
[30:07] Speaker 3: happened in a number of metals companies earlier twenty eighteen nineteen.
[30:12] Speaker 3: We're seeing a lot, you know, we're actually seeing companies
[30:15] Speaker 3: divest their coal portfolios. First one to go is usually
[30:19] Speaker 3: the thermal coal assets, now thermical assets, because there are
[30:23] Speaker 3: a lot of alternatives in the power system that don't
[30:25] Speaker 3: need to use coal for power. First one to go,
[30:28] Speaker 3: less companies are perhaps letting go of their met coal
[30:32] Speaker 3: assets because that still doesn't quite have an alternative, and
[30:36] Speaker 3: you know, there's still steel makers out there who need
[30:38] Speaker 3: a lot of coal, so it still can you know,
[30:40] Speaker 3: they still can do well. One interesting one that happened
[30:43] Speaker 3: was glen Core, glen Core saying that they would get
[30:47] Speaker 3: rid of their coal, they get rid of their coal business,
[30:49] Speaker 3: but then once again energy crisis, four hundred dollars per
[30:53] Speaker 3: ton coal prices that coals worth a lot of money.
[30:57] Speaker 3: It's making a lot of money, right, So we've actually
[30:59] Speaker 3: seen that there's been a little bit of a softening
[31:04] Speaker 3: of a position to completely get rid of coal assets,
[31:07] Speaker 3: particularly if they're making money. Another reason why there's a
[31:10] Speaker 3: softening of the position is it's something that we've seen
[31:14] Speaker 3: in the oil and gas sector as well. When a
[31:17] Speaker 3: more reputable, bigger, larger metals and mining company with good
[31:23] Speaker 3: shareholder oversized good governmance frameworks, when they're taking care of
[31:27] Speaker 3: a coal asset and they're making sure to report emissions,
[31:30] Speaker 3: they're making sure to do their best to kind of
[31:32] Speaker 3: limit the environmental impact of such operations, you make them
[31:36] Speaker 3: divest it, it might go to a producer that cares
[31:41] Speaker 3: a little less about that kind of stuff.
[31:42] Speaker 1: Yeah, this is the classic case for why not to
[31:45] Speaker 1: divest too quickly rather than wind down an asset because
[31:48] Speaker 1: it operates off of the visible eyes of financial services
[31:52] Speaker 1: and the necessary reporting that actually comes with having an
[31:55] Speaker 1: ESG report, So it changes the outlook. So essentially, I
[32:00] Speaker 1: mean the question at the end of it, with all
[32:02] Speaker 1: of these things going on, with supply flows around the
[32:05] Speaker 1: world changing, with demand more or less flatlining, with the
[32:09] Speaker 1: finance industry looking to see retirements more quickly, but it
[32:15] Speaker 1: not always actually working out the way very much focused
[32:17] Speaker 1: on this transition part away from coal as opposed to
[32:21] Speaker 1: immediate closures, some plants actually continuing on for longer than
[32:25] Speaker 1: their actual retirement dates. What do you see in the future?
[32:29] Speaker 1: Is this something when we look at our new energy
[32:31] Speaker 1: outlook and when we look into the future out to
[32:34] Speaker 1: twenty fifty and we think about the different scenarios that
[32:37] Speaker 1: could exist in a less carbon intensive world. Is coal
[32:41] Speaker 1: flat lined indefinitely or is it coming down? Just not
[32:47] Speaker 1: right this moment.
[32:48] Speaker 3: In a net zero world, coal will come down significantly.
[32:53] Speaker 3: It will not be out.
[32:55] Speaker 1: Most likely it still has a place.
[32:59] Speaker 3: It does, the energy a place. So let's break it
[33:01] Speaker 3: down into its two miss So let's break it down
[33:04] Speaker 3: to thermaline met basically, so for thermal coal, or at
[33:07] Speaker 3: least coal in the power sector, it can absolutely come
[33:11] Speaker 3: down in a net zero world in economies and in
[33:15] Speaker 3: countries where coal is just such a big part of
[33:18] Speaker 3: the energy system, sure you might not be able to
[33:22] Speaker 3: get rid of all of it. But that's when we
[33:24] Speaker 3: put on ccs, right.
[33:26] Speaker 1: So we got to do another show about carbon capture
[33:28] Speaker 1: and storage.
[33:29] Speaker 3: There you go, exactly, And so in terms of the
[33:31] Speaker 3: power sector, you absolutely have that downward trajectory. It's industry though,
[33:37] Speaker 3: industry's use of coal where it's a little harder to
[33:40] Speaker 3: kick the habit. So where you can electrify, great, you
[33:44] Speaker 3: can swap it out with clean power. Let's take you know,
[33:48] Speaker 3: if we kind of drill down to some of the
[33:49] Speaker 3: other ones, there isn't much replacement for cocing coal. So
[33:55] Speaker 3: the steel sector is going to find it difficult to
[33:58] Speaker 3: have net zero or zero emissions alternatives. You're going to
[34:03] Speaker 3: require an entire new hydrogen system.
[34:06] Speaker 1: To make that work.
[34:07] Speaker 3: So you're looking at the only way for this to happen. So, yes,
[34:11] Speaker 3: hydrogen might be a bit expensive. Slapping a whole bunch
[34:13] Speaker 3: of CCS on the existing coal facilities, you look at
[34:17] Speaker 3: sort of aluminium production can be highly electrified, but it
[34:21] Speaker 3: can't operate with intermittent power, which is why it's usually
[34:24] Speaker 3: placed next to a coal plant or hydropower or a
[34:28] Speaker 3: hydropower plant. If you can switch it out with another
[34:31] Speaker 3: fuel like a biomass or a clean molecule alternative, those
[34:35] Speaker 3: are easier or cement as well. We're seeing in our
[34:38] Speaker 3: net zero trajectories or o net zero scenarios that it's
[34:42] Speaker 3: just harder to find those alternatives for the industrial sector. Now,
[34:48] Speaker 3: this is where we really want to be looking for
[34:51] Speaker 3: those replacement molecules. So it comes back to this notion
[34:54] Speaker 3: where if you can electrify it, great, we have the solution,
[34:57] Speaker 3: and we have the cheap, free renewable solution. Where we
[35:02] Speaker 3: struggle is where it still needs that physical molecule. It
[35:06] Speaker 3: can't be electrified in the same way and it requires
[35:09] Speaker 3: a whole lot more infrastructure where it just in the
[35:12] Speaker 3: scenarios we see it's just used the same system put
[35:15] Speaker 3: CCS on it, and that's kind of the way. You know,
[35:18] Speaker 3: that's probably one of the very limited options that you're
[35:20] Speaker 3: able to deploy for these sectors. A thing to also note,
[35:23] Speaker 3: you know, these bloss finaces all this steel making. If
[35:26] Speaker 3: we look at our neo trajectories, the industry consumption of
[35:30] Speaker 3: coal is not that different than it was twenty years
[35:33] Speaker 3: ago or so. Also, these new industrial complexes, they're relatively new.
[35:39] Speaker 3: They still got some life to them. That coal's not
[35:42] Speaker 3: going where. I mean, they're still using their coal. They're
[35:44] Speaker 3: not building new ones just yet right especially out in Asia,
[35:48] Speaker 3: and Asia is where all the coal consumption is so
[35:51] Speaker 3: parder to kick the habit to.
[35:52] Speaker 1: Some legacy technology and legacy infrastructure that is right for
[35:56] Speaker 1: technological advancement. Well, Fouls, you mean, thank you for dispelling
[36:00] Speaker 1: the myths and getting me up to speed on exactly
[36:02] Speaker 1: what's happening in coal right now. I appreciate coming on
[36:06] Speaker 1: the show.
[36:06] Speaker 3: Thanks a lot, Dana.
[36:07] Speaker 2: I was a lot of fun.
[36:08] Speaker 3: Thanks so much for having us, Dana.
[36:19] Speaker 1: Today's episode of Switched On was produced by Cam Gray
[36:22] Speaker 1: with production assistance from Kamala Shelling. Bloomberg NIF is a
[36:26] Speaker 1: service provided by Bloomberg Finance LP and its affiliates. This
[36:29] Speaker 1: recording does not constitute, nor should it be construed, as
[36:32] Speaker 1: investment advice, investment recommendations, or a recommendation as to an
[36:36] Speaker 1: investment or other strategy. Bloomberg ANIF should not be considered
[36:39] Speaker 1: as information sufficient upon which to base an investment decision.
[36:42] Speaker 1: Neither Bloomberg Finance LP nor any of its affiliates makes
[36:45] Speaker 1: any representation or warranty as to the accuracy or completeness
[36:49] Speaker 1: of the information contained in this recording, and any liability
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