Coal news and updates

China's thermal coal futures mute as Beijing reins in commodity inflation

BEIJING, May 16 (Reuters) - Trade in China's thermal coal futures has almost come to a halt, after Beijing stepped up its control of coal prices to rein in the soaring costs of energy and raw materials.

The flagship product for Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange (ZCE) has at times seen as many as 1 million lots exchange hands in a day but recorded a turnover of just 27 lots on Monday.

That was down 99.9% from a year ago and the lowest daily volume since the contract launched in 2015, showed ZCE data.

Liquidity started drying up after Beijing intervened in the world's biggest coal consuming market last September to cool runaway prices.

In February it introduced "reference price ranges" for long-term and spot thermal coal trades and the state planner has also warned it will punish any price-pushing behaviours in both the physical and futures market.

That has hit both trading volume and open interest in the coal futures, two key gauges of activity in derivatives.

Open interest on the most-traded September contract was 479 lots, equivalent to 47,900 tonnes of coal, down from a peak of 294,273 lots on April 29 last year.