Vietnam imported 1.17 million mt of coal in October, up 46.4% year on year, preliminary customs data released Monday showed.
Traditionally an exporter, Vietnam turned into an importer amid rising domestic demand, particularly from the power sector.
Australia became the biggest supplier of coal in the month with 498,272 mt, up from none in October last year, followed by Russia (262,177 mt, up 102.1% year on year); and Indonesia (232,007 mt, down 24.4% year on year).
In the first 10 months, Vietnam imported 11.68 million mt of coal, soaring 131.4% year on year, the data showed.
Australia was the biggest supplier during January-October with 3.73 million mt, up more than four times from the same period last year. The other top sellers included Russia with 3.34 million mt, also up 3.8 times from 909,239 mt a year earlier; and Indonesia with 2.24 million mt, up 45.3% from a year ago.
China, which had been the key recipient of Vietnamese coal before 2015, shipped 1.54 million mt to Vietnam during January-October, up 16.9% year on year.
State-owned energy giant PetroVietnam earlier this month signed an agreement in principle to buy 12 million mt/year of imported coal from its subsidiary PV Power for three of its power projects.
PV Power Coal, the coal unit of PV Power, has already signed long-term offtake agreements with seven partners from Australia and Indonesia for 15 million mt/year, PV Power Coal said in a statement on its website.
Meanwhile, Vietnam exported 96,397 mt of coal in October, down 16.3% year on year, mainly to Japan at 67,833 mt, up 17.7% year on year).
In the first 10 months, its coal exports fell 46.2% year on year to 827,525 mt with more than half the volume going to Japan, followed by Indonesia and South Korea.
During January-September, Vietnam produced 30.2 million mt of coal, down nearly 1% from 30.5 million mt in the same period last year, data from the General Statistics Office showed. The figure for January-October is scheduled to be released later this month.
Most of the country's coal production is used domestically by the power, cement and other industrial sectors.
