The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) mid-year report on coal consumption projections, released today, indicates that this continuity will occur despite some short-term fluctuations in key markets during the first half of 2025.
For instance, China and India showed declining demand, linked to weaker electrical consumption than in 2024 and the rise in renewable energy generation.
Conversely, coal use in the United States increased by 10% in the first half of the year, due to robust growth in electricity demand and higher natural gas prices.
In the European Union, however, coal demand remained stable.
This contrasts with the trends of 2024, when consumption increases in India, China, Indonesia, and other emerging economies led to a record annual consumption of approximately 8,800 million tonnes, a 1.5% increase compared to 2023.
This growth offset declines in the markets of Europe, North America, and Northeast Asia that year.
Despite the demand variations observed in the first half of 2025, the IEA believes that the structural factors driving coal use have not undergone significant changes, projecting a slight demand increase for 2025, followed by an equally small decrease in 2026.
This will leave demand levels similar to those of 2024, in line with the agency’s projections made at the end of last year, which already considered a trend of slowing global economic growth and a change in U.S. policy favoring coal after Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
For the entire year of 2025, the IEA expects China’s demand to decrease by about 1%, while in the United States it should grow by 7%.
In the European Union, a 2% reduction in coal use is anticipated.
Regarding production, the IEA estimates it will reach a new record in 2025, driven by China and India, but the report predicts a decline in 2026 due to high inventory levels and price reductions, which will begin to affect supply.
“The expectation is that coal trade volumes, which have been steadily increasing in recent years, will ‘shrink’ in 2025 for the first time since the COVID-19-related recession in 2020,” the IEA also detailed, predicting this decline will continue into 2026.
This would represent “the first consecutive two-year decline in global coal trade volumes this century,” the agency highlighted.
