China’s boycott of Australian coal imports has hurt many domestic industries. In order to save coal, zhejiang and Hunan provinces have recently imposed restrictions, causing small businesses and workshops in Yiwu to suspend production and hunan’s National Development and Reform Commission to order traffic and street lights to be turned off at night. Scholars believe that if Australia completely stops supplying iron ore to China, the consequences for China will be unimaginable.
The trade war between China and Australia has spilled over into the coal sector, and it’s not just Australia’s coal industry that’s being hit hard. A netizen posted on Tuesday night that he received a message from his boss in Yiwu, Zhejiang province, saying that the goods could not be delivered in time. The reason: Power brownouts and blackouts began in Yiwu. Small businesses and workshops in Yiwu have lost power and are complaining that the power cuts are aimed at saving energy or stopping production and heating.
Power cuts under the economic and people’s livelihood hit
Jiang, the head of a local trading company, told THE BBC on Wednesday that the power cuts are not only causing losses to businesses, but also to residents’ lives: “All enterprises and institutions in Zhejiang are now suffering from power cuts. Zhejiang is now very cold, the indoor temperature to 3 degrees below the air conditioning can be turned on, that is, hot air conditioning. At present, Shanghai does not have such restrictions. Probably because of the Australian coal thing. Turning on air conditioners is not a big energy consumption either, because Chinese people don’t use hot air conditioners much at home, especially in winter. People wear down jackets and don’t turn on air conditioners if they don’t have them, and they don’t have to turn on air conditioners where there is heating.”
Turn off landscape lighting and street lighting in hunan province
Wrote another mobile Internet users, in some cities of zhejiang, hunan, late-night traffic lights were closed, since the lack of coal, simply let go of the Australian coal imports, anyway that sanctions for Australia, innocuous, imports of iron ore get the losses back earlier, imports Australian coal can alleviate the domestic coal-fired power plant right now, don’t know how to think of at the top: “on one side is docked with numerous Australian coal ship don’t make customs clearance, on one side, many areas lack of coal, electricity blackouts.”
The provincial development and Reform Commission has issued an emergency notice on the orderly power consumption of the province in 2020, saying that the province’s maximum load has reached 30.93 million kilowatts, up 14.1 percent year on year and surpassing the winter record, and the situation is expected to continue until around the Spring Festival next year.
According to the notice, the period of daily power consumption is 10:30 to 12:00 and 16:30-20:30, and the city landscape lighting and street lamps will be turned off, while the power consumption of party and government offices will be shut down on weekends. However, the authorities did not specify the reason for the blackout.
Australia’s coal quality and power generation efficiency far exceed domestic coal
After China stopped buying coal from Australia in the fourth quarter, China held a coal procurement meeting with Indonesia on November 25 to finalize the purchase of nearly $1.5 billion worth of thermal coal from Indonesia next year in an attempt to make up for the shortfall in demand from Australia’s coal purchases. “He (the government) won’t give you a direct reason. It’s definitely not the peak season,” jiang, who runs the company, told THE BBC. If you use Australian coal to generate electricity, it uses a lot more energy. If you buy Indonesian coal, it produces a lot less electricity per ton.”
WeChat public, “cross-border rhino”, according to at present, most of zhejiang foreign trade “power limit production factory have been advised, bask in the town of wenzhou library money a supplier notification shows: according to the county energy” double control “, “” reduced coal work conference spirit, to the whole town in energy intensive and low output value of the enterprise will be in December 15 to December 31, orderly electricity, power supply departments during this period will be 24 hours monitoring situation of enterprise production, such as have found that don’t put into production in accordance with the provisions of, 20 days of power will be forced to stop production.
Beijing iron and steel research institute of retired scholar Mr. Song to accept this interview, Chinese enterprises the main coking coal for Australia and Canada, power generation, coal demand is very big: “the Chinese restrictions on all coal imports from Australia, but the first five years, in the past ten years, China’s generating capacity is surplus, now I don’t know why suddenly into a power shortage.”
Australia’s iron ore supply will be Australia’s ace in the hole
Australia is the main source of China’s coal imports. Australia has countermeasures against China, Mr. Song said, but they have not yet started: “Australia has one of the best counter-weapons, which is to cut off Chinese iron ore supplies. China now imports more than a billion tonnes of iron ore a year, from Brazil, Australia and, to a lesser degree, South Africa. If Australia and Brazil unite and iron ore supply is cut off, all Chinese steel mills will immediately stop production. So it’s very foolish of you to restrict coal imports.”
Mr. Song said that overseas iron ore is as important to Chinese steel companies as semiconductor chips, and it will affect China’s steel manufacturing industry, including aircraft and cars, as well as metal products such as civilian washing machines and microwave ovens.
According to the head of a foreign trade factory in Yiwu, the whole foreign trade industry is worried about logistics. Some factories have already piled up their goods and cannot be shipped out. Shipping, rail and express delivery are facing delays and congestion is very serious.
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