WEEKLY: China's thermal coal market remains divergent

China's spot thermal coal market diverged during the four-day trading week of June 15-18, shortened by the Dragon Boat Festival holiday, with mine-mouth prices extending gains on tighter safety inspections while portside prices remained largely unchanged.

Safety inspections intensified across major producing regions last week as the ongoing safety production month campaign continued. Mysteel's weekly survey showed that the capacity utilization rate of the 462 sampled thermal coal mines averaged 89.3% during the June 12-18 period, down from 90.1% a week earlier and 90.5% two