The global coal market continued to stabilise in 2025, following the extreme dislocations of the 2022 energy crisis, when thermal coal prices surged above USD 400/t across several major benchmarks. Prices rose in the first half of 2026 but remained well below those exceptional 2022 highs. This recovery is best understood as a rebound from weak year-end 2025 prices, when international coal had fallen close to marginal supply costs. As prices climbed from that floor, the conventional pricing relationship between coal grades held within its historical range, with coking coal continuing to trade at a premium to thermal coal.

By the end of 2025, many coal price benchmarks had fallen to levels that squeezed producer margins, particularly for low-calorific thermal coal and Australian coking coal. Against that backdrop, the price recovery in early 2026 reflected an improvement in market fundamentals. By February, the Newcastle free-on-board (FOB) thermal coal prices were 7% higher than in December. Over the following months, benchmark prices strengthened further, if unevenly across regions and coal qualities.

Newcastle 6 000 kilocalories per kilogramme (kcal/kg) FOB recovered from the weak levels seen in early 2025 and was assessed at USD 136/t by late August 2026. Indonesian 4 200 kcal/kg FOB rose from USD 45/t at the start of 2026 to USD 66/t by the end of August. In metallurgical coal, prices remained below earlier highs but strengthened later in the first half of 2026. The hard coking coal FOB Australia index reached USD 245/t in July, around 30% above 2025 levels.

Several factors have reinforced the recent recovery in prices. Higher gas prices linked to conflict in the Middle East improved coal’s competitiveness in power generation and supported thermal coal demand. Regulatory uncertainty and export-related measures in Indonesia – the world’s largest thermal coal exporter – added further upward pressure, particularly in the low-calorific segment. In the Atlantic basin, Colombia’s Cerrejón mine, a key supplier of thermal coal to Europe, declared force majeure on 1 June following rail blockades, tightening prompt supply to European buyers. In China, a mining accident in Shanxi curbed domestic coal output and supported prices, with a more pronounced impact on coking coal. The loss of some Iranian gas-based steel output may have also increased reliance on coal‑based steel production elsewhere, further accentuating metallurgical coal demand. Intense summer weather conditions linked to El Niño boosted electricity demand across parts of Asia, further supporting coal consumption.

Even so, coal markets in the first half of 2026 remained more stable than during the crisis years, with prices increasingly shaped by regional disruptions, weather-related demand and procurement behaviour rather than by a broad-based global shortage.

After the sharp correction from the historic price spikes of 2022, global thermal coal prices continued to ease through 2024 and 2025 as supply remained ample and demand growth softened in several key importing markets. Newcastle FOB and Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (ARA) CIF (cost, insurance and freight) prices declined from the higher levels seen in 2024, while South China CFR (cost and freight) remained under pressure from abundant Chinese domestic supply and rising stock levels. As a result, by late 2025 major thermal coal benchmarks had fallen close to marginal supply costs, particularly for lower-calorific material, marking a clear shift away from the crisis-driven pricing of previous years.

The price trajectories of the three main thermal coal benchmarks diverged somewhat over 2024 and 2025, though all moved lower overall. Newcastle FOB 6 000 kcal/kg remained the highest of the three for most of the period, trading around USD 130-145 per tonne through much of 2024 before falling towards USD 100/t in early 2025. ARA CIF 6 000 kcal/kg followed a similar downward path, while South China CFR 5 500 kcal/kg softened more steadily, dropping to the lowest of the three benchmarks by mid-2025.

In the first half of 2026, thermal coal prices recovered from those late-2025 lows. Newcastle FOB 6 000 kcal/kg rose to USD 150/t, ARA CIF increased to around USD 130/t, and South China CFR 5 500 kcal/kg also rebounded visibly from its earlier trough. All three benchmarks reached their highest levels on a weekly basis since the start of 2024 by mid-2026.

Although thermal coal prices corrected sharply after the 2021-2023 energy crisis, they did not return to pre-crisis levels and remained structurally higher thereafter. At the same time, observed price volatility1 declined from the exceptional levels recorded during the crisis period. This combination – elevated price levels alongside lower volatility was underpinned by strong coal demand through early 2026. Prices have risen further since early March 2026. This renewed upward movement has triggered a pronounced geographical divergence in weekly price volatility. In Europe, where the ARA benchmark is somehow linked to the volatile Title Transfer Facility (TTF) gas market, weekly price swings surged, approaching the extremes seen during the energy crisis. Asia followed a different pattern: steadier growth in coal demand improved conditions for sellers and supported more stable price formation. As a result, short-term movements in Newcastle and South China benchmarks remained comparatively subdued, even as benchmark prices rose.

The rebound in thermal coal prices in the first half of 2026 therefore reflected a combination of recovering fundamentals and market-specific tightening. In Europe, higher gas prices and supply disruptions in the Atlantic basin supported ARA prices. In Asia, stronger power-sector demand, weather-related cooling needs and selective procurement by utilities supported Newcastle and South China prices. Low-calorific coal also strengthened, partly because regulatory uncertainty in Indonesia affected expectations for seaborne supply. Nevertheless, the upturn remained moderate and uneven across benchmarks, with prices shaped by regional supply conditions and procurement behaviour rather than a broad-based shortage of thermal coal.

Comparing the two crisis episodes shows that international thermal coal prices reacted far more strongly to the outbreak of the war in Ukraine than to the conflict in the Middle East. When the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022, ARA prices rose sharply, reflecting a severe gas-supply shock to European energy markets. Reduced Russian pipeline gas deliveries, the European Union’s ban on Russian coal imports, weak hydropower output and tight conditions across the European electricity system – worsened by widespread outages in the French nuclear fleet – pushed gas prices higher and reinforced gas-to-coal switching in power generation. Floodings in Australia further tightened coal supply. Since then, new suppliers have entered the global LNG market, and Europe has diversified its import sources, notably through increased LNG imports from the United States. As a result, the rise in thermal coal prices that followed the conflict in the Middle East in the end of February 2026 was more moderate and started from a substantially lower price base. In Asian markets – which are more directly exposed to energy trade risks in the Middle East – thermal coal prices also rose, though not to the same extent as after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine.

This suggests that the supply shock differed markedly between the two episodes. The disruption to international coal and gas trade in 2022 was both larger and more immediate than the disruptions experienced in 2026. Although the current conflict has driven coal prices higher, the reaction of international benchmark prices has been far more muted than in 2022.

Historically, thermal coal prices from Australia and South Africa have broadly tracked Russian export prices. But that relationship broke down after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, as sanctions and trade restrictions disrupted market access and increased the commercial and logistical risks associated with Russian coal. Russian exports consequently traded at steep discounts to the main international benchmarks.

Those discounts narrowed through 2024 and 2025, as global coal prices retreated from crisis-era highs towards more typical market levels. By late 2025, with many international benchmarks approaching marginal supply costs, Russian exporters had less scope to maintain large discounts without eroding their margins. Throughout 2024 and 2025, Russian coal shipped from eastern ports such as Vostochny remained more competitive than coal exported via Black Sea ports, reflecting better access to Asian buyers and a greater ability to redirect volumes within the Pacific market. Prices for eastern-port Russian prices tracked materially closer to the Australian and South African benchmarks, while Black Sea prices stayed consistently lower for most of the period. This reflected ongoing differences in market access, freight economics and buyer base. Even so, Russian producers continued to face profitability pressures from lower outright price levels, persistent discounts and rising export costs.

In the first half of 2026, Russian coal continued to trade at a discount to Australian and South African benchmarks, but the gap increased  as international prices recovered from their late-2025 lows. Cost pressures remained a key constraint on Russian export competitiveness in 2026. Black Sea and Baltic exports faced greater pressure than Far Eastern cargoes, reflecting less favourable route economics and market access. As a result, Russian coal remained an important source of supply in regional markets, particularly in Asia, but continued to depend on discounts to stay competitive.

Throughout 2025, ARA CIF coal, Brent crude oil and TTF natural gas all traded within relatively narrow ranges compared to the extreme volatility of 2022. Coal forward prices also pointed to limited expectations of a sharp rebound. Together, these signals suggested that markets had largely moved beyond crisis-era pricing, with coal increasingly valued on fundamentals rather than fears of supply shortages.

This changed in early March 2026, when the conflict in the Middle East sent energy prices higher. Brent crude reacted most sharply, while TTF gas also rose. ARA coal prices increased as well, but by less than the other two fuels. The muted response suggests that coal was affected mainly through its links to gas and power markets, rather than by any direct disruption to European coal supply.

The forward curves suggest that markets viewed the coal-price increase as more limited and short-lived than the movements in oil and gas. Brent and TTF responded more sharply to heightened geopolitical risk, while the ARA coal curve shifted only modestly higher, implying that tighter coal-market conditions were not expected to persist.

Oil and gas forward curves also pointed to a gradual easing from the elevated spot prices reached after the outbreak of the conflict, while still holding above pre-March 2026 levels. By contrast, the coal curve implied a more moderate price path through 2026 and 2027. The comparison highlights that, in the first half of 2026, European coal prices were supported mainly by higher gas prices and power-sector demand, while the impact of the Middle East crisis remained far smaller than for other energy commodities.