Peabody starts coal trade, hopes to supply China

Mon Apr 14, 2008 1:47am EDT

BEIJING, April 14 (Reuters) - Peabody (BTU.N: Quote, Profile, Research), the world's largest private coal company, hopes to become a major supplier of the fuel to China after starting to trade coal out of Beijing.

"We hope to become a major supplier to cover China's energy needs from Australia, Indonesia, and in the long term, Mongolia," Tayeb Tahir, president of Peabody China, told an industry conference in Beijing.

Asked if it has brought some coal into China, the world's largest producer and consumer of the fuel, he said: "We are in the process of doing so."

The U.S. company set up its Beijing office last year. (Reporting by Nao Nakanishi; editing by Ken Wills)

Coal analyst Jeremy Sussman of Natixis Bleichroeder said China has been importing more in the last year, while exports had fallen to just 2 million tons last year.

"They need thermal coal for power generation and metallurgical coal for their robust steelmaking industry," he said.

China, which is undergoing an industrial revolution, is short on oil and natural gas, but has the world's third-largest coal reserve base. It uses coal to generate about 70 percent of its electricity.

Peabody estimates that in the next two years, China will overtake the United States in energy consumption and will account for a fifth of world energy demand by 2030. (Reporting by Nao Nakanishi in Beijing and Steve James in New York; Editing by Braden Reddall)

[ 本帖最後由 華夏之聲 於 2008-4-15 06:07 編輯 ]