Global Metals & Mining: Coal inventory at Indian IPPs down 28% y/y, biggest 3-month drop;16 days of use end-June‘26 close to average

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Global Metals & Mining: Coal inventory at Indian IPPs down 28% y/y, biggest 3-month drop;16 days of use end-June‘26 close to average

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01 Jul 2026 09:35:34 ET │ 9 pages

Global Metals & Mining

Coal inventory at Indian IPPs down 28% y/y, biggest 3-month drop; 16

days of use end-June’26 close to average

Ephrem Ravi AC

CITI'S TAKE +44-20-7986-2462

While the market has well noted the unusual volatility between Chinese ephrem.ravi@citi.com

domestic and seaborne coal prices due to the power crisis in China in Wenyu Yaosummer of ‘21 and geopolitics in Europe last year, the big (and unseasonal)

drawdowns in coal inventories in India went relatively underappreciated and +44-20-7986-4551

was a contributory factor to the strength in seaborne coal prices in ’22–‘23. wenyu.yao@citi.com

At end-Jun’26, Indian inventories were 41.8mn, lower than the peak above Jack Shang, CFA

58.1mn tonnes in Jun’25. Inventories have come down by 13.5mn tonnes in jack.shang@citi.comthe last three months, the biggest three-month drop and exceeding the

11.2mn tonnes drop over Jun–Aug’20 during the pandemic lockdowns. They Krishan M Agarwal

were down 28% y/y and 11% m/m in June (compared with average krishan.agarwal@citi.com

seasonality of 4% m/m decrease during the month). Inventories are now at

14 days of use (vs long-term average of 13 days), down from a peak of 19 days Tom Mulqueen

in March. tom.mulqueen@citi.com

Shashi Shekhar, CFA

India is often an underappreciated factor in global seaborne coal markets — While

shashi.shekhar@citi.comthe focus of the coal market usually is on China, India is close behind as one of the

top 3 importers of both coking coal and thermal coal (c.15–17% share of global Omnath Sinh

seaborne demand for both) omnath.sinh@citi.com