Vietnam's coal imports jump 30% to hit 13-month high in July

The tally hit a 13-month high, although it was still below June's record high of 7.26 million tonnes, the statistics show.

The surge aligned with the Hanoi government's commitment to prevent power shortages this year by boosting coal imports to meet strong domestic demand, particularly from the electricity generation sector, during summer, Mysteel Global learned.

The value of the country's coal imports totalled $838 million last month, rising by 14.7% from a month earlier, according to the Customs data.

Most of Vietnam's coal came from Australia and Indonesia, which together accounted for about 67% of the total volume, Mysteel Global calculated.

Specifically, Vietnam imported 2.63 million tonnes of coal from Australia in July, more than doubling June's figures, while imports from Indonesia dropped by 29% from the previous month to 2.08 million tonnes, according to the data. Imports from China also declined, plunging by 59.3% from June to just 10,844 tonnes.

Meanwhile, coal imports from Russia saw a 47.7% increase from June to reach 694,253 tonnes in July, while coal imports from Laos slumped by 49.1% from June to reach 99,370 tonnes last month.

For the first seven months of this year, Vietnam's total coal imports soared by 36.9% from the same period last year to reach 40.48 million tonnes, the data shows.

Written by Winnie Han, hanyueran@mysteel.com

Edited by Russ McCulloch, russ.mcculloch@mysteel.com