Languishing global prices today mask a very different future for the world’s most-consumed source of power.
Australian thermal coal contracts, the benchmark for Asia, are hovering close to $100 a ton thanks to a mild winter and global oversupply, a price level last seen in May 2021, before the energy-market upheaval that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. While that is battering producers and will cheer those predicting the end of the dirtiest fossil fuel, it’s a trough that may not last.
Investment in new production has dwindled in much of the world as shareholders and banks increasingly refuse to approve new spending on projects. Demand, however, continues to rise in India and China, outpacing breakneck rates of expansion in solar and wind, while even developed countries look to coal to help power the artificial intelligence boom.
