Japan, South Korea and Taiwan began to reduce purchases of Russian coal, trying to replace it with deliveries from Australia. This is evidenced by the customs statistics of countries, the Russian media reports.
In the first seven months of 2022, South Korea reduced the supply of coal from Russia by 3% (to 12.8 million tons), Japan – by 25% (to 8.4 million tons), reduced the share of Taiwan, whose deliveries whose deliveries are stronger than all They collapsed by 33.3% and amounted to 4.4 million tons. The media note that before the war with Ukraine, the Asian market was considered as one of the most promising, which was reflected even in the strategy of the coal industry.
In Russia, it was supposed to increase the volume of supplies primarily due to supplies to China, India, Japan, South Korea and Vietnam. However, Japan after Europe has already announced his intention to abandon Russian coal in its energy balance. The share of domestic coal in Japanese imports in 2021 was estimated at 11%. South Korea intends to reduce deliveries, however, its level of dependence on Russian supplies is several times higher – in the first quarter of 2022, Russian deliveries accounted for 68%. Taiwan also announced his intention to abandon Russian coal, refusing in August to renegot down supplies. It is planned to replace Russian deliveries with imports from Australia, however, experts warn that this will significantly hit the budgets, since deliveries will be much more expensive.
Russian companies now have to redirect about 63 million out of 172 million tons of all coal exports of the country. Experts call China and India the most obvious sales markets, which, following the example of oil supplies, can take advantage of the situation and increase the supply of Russian raw materials with a discount. The European market for Russian suppliers has been closed from August 10, when a full -fledged embargo on Russian coal was introduced.