Coal Snared in Headwind as Traders Flee $300 Billion Market

Buying and selling slumps as utilities cut coal consumption
Northwest Europe still handles vast majority of volume

Snow falls on coal sitting in a freight wagon ahead of shipping at the dressing mill at the Sibir coal processing plant operated by OAO Mechel Mining, a unit of OAO Mechel, near Myski, Kemerovo region, Russia, on Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2015. The company, which employs about 70,000 people, is included in a list of about 200 \"systemically important\" enterprises that Russia said it may support under a government plan to stabilize the economy.Photographer: Andrey Rudakov

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By Ladka Mortkowitz Bauerova

January 31, 2018 at 12:01 AM UTC

Updated on

January 31, 2018 at 8:34 AM UTC

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The halcyon days of coal trading seem to be over as buying and selling of the world’s most widely used power-plant fuel plunged last year.

For years the coal market defied a global pushback against the commodity by lawmakers and some of the world’s biggest money managers. After buying and selling almost tripled in five years, activity slumped by more than a third in 2017, the steepest decline in two decades, according to London-based consultant Prospex Research Ltd.