IEEFA November 20, 2025 Amandine Denis-Ryan
In the early 2010s, the coal industry attracted a large wave of investment, banking on surging coal imports from China and India.
When this growth didn’t materialise, coal oversupply and depressed prices sent major companies bankrupt with significant value destruction for shareholders.
The LNG industry risks repeating the coal industry’s mistakes, as investment levels outstrip future demand, with potentially more severe consequences for the capital-intensive industry.
Peddling a ‘supercycle’ for coal in the 2010s
In the early 2010s, the coal industry was on the rise. Global trade had tripled between 1990 and 2011, with the 2000s experiencing “the largest growth in coal demand in history – greater than the previous four decades combined”. This growth was expected to accelerate after China and India entered the global coal import market (Figure 1). Between 2011 and 2012, global coal imports increased by 13% and coal prices doubled (Figure 2).
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