China scrambles to boost coal as winter looms, fuel demand peaks

Shanghai

CHINA'S efforts to shrink its bloated coal industry may have worked too well, too fast.

Prices have surged more than 50 per cent this year after the government ordered miners to cut output to ease a glut and help lift the industry out of crisis. Now, as winter looms and fuel demand peaks, the consumer and producer of about half the world's coal is having to relax some of those controls, or face even higher fuel costs, according to analysts at Citigroup Inc and ICIS China, as well as China Coal Transport and Distribution Association (CCTD).