Introduction by Nostromo Research Much of the data included here is already summarised in the Mines and Communities publication “Dark Materials”. See: http://www.minesandcommunities.org/article.php?a=10299. That research also provides much detail on coal imports and exports which isn’t included here, as well as information on coking coal, as opposed to thermal/steam coal which isn’t included among the figures below. But – as usual – Barry Sergeant of Mineweb performs a valuable service to minewatchers in general, by calculating the market capitalisation of the world’s leading (Tier 1) thermal coal producers – an index of what they are worth as judged by he value of their marketed shares.
· According to Sergeant, this global “marcap” currently stands at just under US$356 billion
· By far the largest part (more than 40%) of the market is enjoyed by Chinese coal companies – standing at roughly US$160 billion
· Shenhua Coal alone is worth (at over US$60 billion) around a sixth of the total marcap
· Coal of India comes in at second, valued at US$44 billion
· Peabody Energy – the world’s biggest private coal producer – comes in at third (valued at just over US$17 billion)
· US coal companies are the third most highly-valued by location, followed by Australian producers
· Indonesia coal companies are the fourth most highly-valued, country by country (roughly worth US$27 billion).
· However, although Bumi Resources is Indonesia’s biggest miner of the black stuff, its marcap (at US$6.6 billion) puts it some way below the value of PT Adaro (US$8.8 billion)
See http://www.mineweb.com/mineweb/view/mineweb/en/page38?oid=119821&sn=Detail.