Supply Chain Research

Vietnam’s state coal producer, Vinacomin, plans to expand coal output by 9% in 2018 and 44% annually to 2020 to support export sales. With China sporadically applying coal import limits the most likely targets for growth including India, Japan and South Korea. The opportunity in India is optically significant with $18 billion of imports in the 12 months to June 30, up 45% on a year earlier. However the market is dominated by imports of sub-bituminous coal (89% of the total in the past 12 months) and major producers in Australia (40%) and Indonesia (25%) whereas Vietnam has provided minor...