Global miner Peabody eyes sales opportunity in India's rising coal imports

Indian imports of coal will continue to rise, reckons the world’s largest private sector coal miner Peabody Energy. Glenn Kellow, president and chief executive officer (CEO) of the company, said Indian imports of coal rose a sharp 21 per cent in February, “nearly offsetting reduced demand from China” He made the comments in an earnings call with analysts as reproduced in Seeking Alpha last week. His comments show that despite attempts by the Indian government to push production of domestic coal, global miners see no cause for worry.
 

“Through March, Indian imports were up 6 million tonnes compared to the prior year, as utilities rebuild stockpiles and domestic production fails to keep pace with demand,” Kellow added.
 

The ministry of coal has not yet released data on the total imports by India for 2017-18. But, according to a reply to a question in Parliament, the total import of both coking coal, used by the steel industry, and of non-coking coal, used by other sectors like power plants, has come down 6.37 per cent as of March 31, 2107. Peabody’s upbeat note indicates the trend is likely to be reversed.
 

The US firm had filed for bankruptcy protection in April 2016, but the revival of the global market for minerals, including coal, has turned it around. US Energy Secretary Rick Perry on a recent tour of India had remarked that he was pleased about coal imports that had begun from the US to India. India and other Asian countries are also importing other energy fuels, including oil and gas, from the US. Perry said some of those imports would cut the adverse US trade deficit with countries like India, which had a surplus of $22 billion in balance of payments with the US.
 

Global miners like Peabody have also benefited by locking themselves into fixed price agreements for selling coal to India among other countries. This will help the companies to buffer themselves against a dip in coal prices that could upset their balance sheets. In the same call Kellow said, “Peabody has secured additional fixed price agreements to capitalise on strong thermal processing levels. We now have approximately 5.5 million tonnes locked in for 2018 at an average price of $76 per short tonne and some 2 million tonnes committed to 2019 at an average price of $75 dollars per short tonne.”

This means Indian importers of coal from the mining company, mostly port-based power plants and steel companies, will not be able to negotiate a softer price for the fuel even if local producer Coal India produces more and plans to reduce the price of its output. Peabody’s woes had come about because of a sharp drop in coal prices that had left it with an unserviceable debt pile of $10.1 billion.

However, in the earnings call, the company made no mention of plans to invest in Indian coal mines. Reversing a 44-year-old policy of keeping coal mines under the government, the ministry has opened new mines for investment by commercial miners. 

Indian demand for coal is on course to compensate for the dip in demand from China. Data from the coal ministry shows, growth in supply of coal to the power sector was 7.2 per cent in 2017-18. “As estimated by the ministry of power, the pan-India growth of coal-based generation would be 5.4-5.7 per cent in the current year and the next four years,” the ministry has told Parliament.