Coal news and updates

India surpasses China as the top developer of coal-based steelmaking capacity in 2022

For the first time ever, India surpassed China as the top developer of coal-based capacity: it holds 40% of coal-based ‘blast furnace-basic oxygen furnace’ capacity under development, while China is responsible for 39%.

New Delhi: Coal-based steelmaking capacity under development globally that follows the ‘blast furnace-basic oxygen furnace’ production method increased to 380 mtpa in 2022 from 350 mtpa in 2021. This comes at a time when its share of the world’s total capacity must shrink dramatically in order to hit decarbonization targets, according to a new report from Global Energy Monitor.

The annual survey of data in the Global Steel Plant Tracker finds that almost all of the coal-based capacity under development is in Asia (99%), with China and India holding the majority of those developments (79% together).

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For the first time ever, India surpassed China as the top developer of coal-based capacity: it holds 40% of coal-based ‘blast furnace-basic oxygen furnace’ capacity under development, while China is responsible for 39%.

But while coal-based steelmaking has in recent years ceded part of its share to cleaner forms of production, the transition is moving far too slowly.

According to the International Energy Agency’s Net-zero by 2050 scenario, the total share of ‘electric arc furnace’ capacity should reach 53% by 2050. This means 347 million metric tonnes (Mt) of coal-based capacity would need to be retired or canceled and 610 Mt of electric arc furnace capacity would need to be added to the current fleet.