Analysis of Influencing Factors of Thermal Coal Price

Abstract

As the world’s largest coal consumer, China’s coal consumption in 2021 was 2934.4 million tons of standard coal. Thermal coal occupies an important position in the coal market and industry system, as an important raw material in the power industry, steel industry and other industries. The price of thermal coal in 2021 was at its highest level in a decade, and reached a historical level of about 2587.5 yuan per ton in October 2021. In the same month, the government intervened in the thermal coal price, which fell 51.9% by the end of the year under the influence of the policy. In previous studies, there has been little research on thermal coal and the impact of the variable “policy” on the thermal coal price. Thus, this paper analyzed the factors that affect the price fluctuation of thermal coal, and the impact of economic policy uncertainty on the thermal coal price. The cointegration test and forecast-error variance decomposition (FEVD) are adopted in this study. Our results show that the impact of policy uncertainty on the thermal coal price gradually increases over time, but the impact of policy uncertainty on price is negative and not as strong as expected. On the contrary, inventory and other energy prices have a greater positive impact on the price of thermal coal. The results of this study are of significance for the prediction of thermal coal prices in the future.