Insight - Cold weather, sky-high gas prices burnish coal’s appeal

Higher demand: A worker excavates anthracite coal from a strip mine in Pennsylvania. Forecasts of rising gas prices in 2021 and 2022 will boost coal demand through next year, though it might not reach 2019 levels. — Reuters

A PERFECT storm of freezing temperatures and a supply-led gas price rally has stoked thermal coal demand, with prices at multi-year highs, reminding power suppliers and consumers that its appeal won’t fade in a straight line.

The northern hemisphere weather has highlighted coal’s relative endurance, some 200 years after it was powering the first Industrial Revolution, even as several countries abandon the fuel to decarbonise and meet climate change targets.