- Asian coal imports fell 4.4% in 2025, but domestic coal production in China hit record highs, and India’s output only dipped slightly due to weather disruptions—undermining claims of “peak coal.”.
- China plans to add 85 new coal-fired power plants this year, while India may extend its coal expansion timeline to 2047, signaling ongoing reliance on coal for energy security.
- Slower renewable additions and recovering coal prices suggest demand remains resilient, with both China and India prioritizing energy independence over rapid decarbonization.
Speculation about the peak in demand for hydrocarbons has abounded for years as parts of the world struggle to reduce their consumption of coal, oil, and gas. Peak coal resurfaced this week, following data showing that Asian seaborne imports of the energy commodity had inched down by 4.4% in 2025, from an all-time high in the previous year. As usual, the peak coal story is likely premature.
Data from Kpler showed this week that Asian buyers imported a total of 1.09 billion metric tons of coal in 2025, down from 1.14 billion tons imported in the previous year. The data was cited by Reuters columnist Clyde Russell, who suggested the dip signals peak coal demand in the largest importing region. However, in the same year that Asian coal imports from overseas dipped, China’s domestic coal production hit a record high, and while India’s coal production declined modestly, by 0.64%, over the first three quarters of the current fiscal year, the decline was the result of weather-related disruptions rather than weakening demand.
China, the indisputable leader in wind and solar, plans to commission a total of 85 new coal-fired power generation units this year, even after in 2025 the country recorded a decline in coal-fired power generation due to higher output from other sources, including hydropower. Also, China produced 4.83 billion tons of coal last year, which was a big reason for the weaker imports, which stood at 490 million tons.
India, meanwhile, may well change its plans about the future of coal, which until recently included a halt of any capacity expansion after 2035. Now, the government is mulling over postponing the end of coal capacity expansion to 2047, in evidence that there is significant unease about whether wind and solar can replace the fuel that currently accounts for over 70% of electricity generation, according to figures from the International Energy Agency.
The peak coal demand story is also undermined by the price factor. Last year, thermal coal prices slipped to the lowest in four years in June but then began to rebound, gaining between 16% for Australian coal and 12% for coal from Indonesia. Higher prices tend to weaken appetite for imports, which may well have contributed to the overall decline in annual imports by Asian buyers last year.
Meanwhile, the addition of new wind and solar capacity is slowing down, Rystad Energy reported earlier this week, even as it predicted that the combined electricity output from wind and solar—plus hydropower, geothermal and other sources in the “renewables” category—is about to overtake the total generated by coal for the first time this year.
According to the forecast, collective renewables will this year produce 11,900 TWh globally, with the prediction based on expectations that “practically all the new demand is being met with renewable sources,” and “coal generation has plateaued, marking a significant milestone in power generation.” Yet the fact that China and India are both expanding their coal generation capacity suggests the plateau may not be the new normal. Building new capacity when planners expect no increase in demand for that capacity would be a pointless—and expensive—endeavor. This suggests that both China and India expect to be using more coal in the coming years, and at least until 2047 in India’s case.
Of course, this doesn’t automatically mean they will be boosting their imports. Both are working to reduce their overall reliance on energy imports, with India recently declaring a goal of $100 billion in investments in oil and gas production by 2030. In other words, watching imports only to glean trends in total demand and supply dynamics may result in an incomplete and potentially misleading picture. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
