The amount of South African coal imported by India rose 8% in the year ending March 2011. According to mjunction, an online Indian e-commerce company, Indian imports accounted for about 32% of the coal exported from South Africa.
Imports to India in the 2010/11 financial year were 20.2 million t, up from 18.7 million t the previous year. However, exports through Richard’s Bay coal terminal did not reflect the general trend, having fallen from 66.6 million t exported in 2009/10 to 66.3 million t in 2010/11. The decline may be attributed to the problems the terminal, the largest in the world, has experienced with its infrastructure. Despite its expanding capacity, bottlenecks and derailments have limited its exports.
India’s expanding power generating capacity has prompted total imports of coal to jump 17% to 47 million tpa. Predictions suggest that this figure could hit as high as 60 million t in 2011.