The global coal market is being repriced on security rather than economics, as China restocking and disciplined supply across key exporters tighten global fundamentals.
Trump’s April invocation of the Defense Production Act formally reclassified U.S. coal infrastructure as a national defense asset.
It’s the clearest signal yet that the energy-security era is rewriting the rules for fossil fuels.
But the physical fundamentals are just as interesting.
China is restocking ahead of peak summer demand. Indonesia is holding supply discipline under its tightest RKAB regime in years.
Australia is shipping at its highest May volumes in half a decade. And across DBX’s 97-mine Indonesian cost curve survey, every mine is now profitable on a grade-adjusted basis — though a third of them have less than $10/t of buffer before the next correction.
Three numbers that define the market right now:
— $63.80/t: ICI4 GAR 4,200 spot, up 62% from last June’s four-year low
— 28.2 Mt: China’s estimated May thermal imports, up 30% MoM
— 33 mines: the portion of Indonesian supply most vulnerable to any price pullback
Source: DBX Commodities
