North Korea was China’s fourth largest coal supplier in 2016, with non-lignite imports of 22.48 million t.
In December 2016, the country banned coal from North Korea in order to follow UN sanctions, but this ban exempted any coal that was already in transit or any imports that were for “the people’s wellbeing”. This latest ban includes coal already in transit.
Steel prices have been affected by the ban already with mills potentially needing to meet a 22 million t shortfall, if the ban becomes fully applied.
