The Impact of the Financial Crisis on the Global Seaborne Hard Coal Market: Are there Implications for the Future?

The global financial crisis in 2008 sent commodity markets spinning which caused demand to erode, price levels to quickly plummet and project financing costs to rise. In this paper, the authors examine the impacts the economic slowdown has had on the global seaborne hard coal market looking at the impacts for both coking (metallurgical) and thermal (steam) coals including pricing, supply availability, demand and aggregated mine level production costs. The hard coal market experienced a significant slow down; the commodity has bounced back strongly in 2010 driven by strong Asian demand at growth rates above historic levels and strong projections for the future.