As we approach the closing of International Mining’s March issue at the end of the week, news from India continues to demonstrate how hot that country is. The issue includes an overview of the mining industry there – particularly coal, aluminium, base metals and rare earths. India is proving to be one of South Africa’s biggest buyers of coal, Jolanda Torrisi reports in The African Mining Network’s latest newsletter. (http://africanminingnetwork.com/) “During December, India grew its coal purchases from South Africa by 54% compared to the same period of 2008. The main contributors to the growing sales to India are the country’s demand for fuel is rising and also floods in Australia have disrupted supplies from this traditional source.

It has been reported that South Africa’s coal exports to India grew from 1.3 Mt to 2 Mt during December. And for the  2010 calendar year, exports grew to 21 Mt from 17.8 Mt in 2009.

“Coal accounts for 54% of India’s power plant capacity, and the nation needs to expand generation capacity by 20% to 200,000 MW from current levels by March 2012 to sustain economic growth of 8%.
Australia’s recent floods and cyclone which hit the east coast of Australia with devastating effect on coal production and exports particularly from the states of New South Wales and Queensland brought about an estimated 20-30% drop in coal production.

“A statement recently published from the Richards Bay Coal Terminal said that India bought almost one-third of South Africa’s Richards Bay’s exports during 2010 and 59% of the coal exports went to Asia and 25% to Europe. Meanwhile, it is reported that China’s purchases fell by nearly half to 484,000 t in December from 844,000 t in November. China imported about 7 Mt from South Africa last year, compared with 1.5 Mt in 2009.

“Asian coal purchases from South Africa rose 17% to 3.86 Mt in December from 3.3 Mt in November, because of higher Indian purchases. Atlantic area countries imported 1.84 Mt in December. For the first time in five years, Richards Bay increased shipments climbing 3.8% to 63.43 Mt last year due to growing demand from Asia.