China power crisis boosts coal imports from Indonesia to record

Indonesia is now overwhelmingly China’s biggest overseas supplier of coal, with shipments hitting a record last month after Beijing loosened curbs on imports to tackle its power crisis.

Cargoes of coking, thermal and brown coal from the Southeast Asian nation surpassed 21 million tons in September, from just over 17-million tons in August, and now account for about two-thirds of China’s total imports, according to customs data. Chinese buyers have been forced to tap other suppliers of the fuel to replace Australian exports banned almost a year ago after political relations with Canberra soured.