Global demand for coal reached a record high in 2025 – IEA

Global coal demand will reach a record high of 8.85 billion tons (+0.5% y/y) in 2025. However, it is expected to decline by 2030. This is stated in the December report of the International Energy Agency.

This year, global coal consumption was influenced by key factors such as weather, fuel prices, and political decisions. These often caused changes in demand that sometimes contradicted recent trends in countries or regions.

For example, India’s early and strong monsoon season reduced electricity demand and increased hydropower production. As a result, the country’s annual coal-fired power generation will decline in 2025 for only the third time in the last 50 years. In the EU, a decline in hydro and wind power generation led to an increase in coal-fired power generation in the first half of the year. Thus, demand for coal in the EU in 2025 will decline by only about 2% year-on-year.

According to the latest IEA forecast, global coal demand will stabilize over the next few years, showing a gradual decline until 2030. Consumption is expected to fall by 3% compared to 2025 by that time.

It is also predicted that global coal-fired power generation will fall below 2021 levels by the end of this decade.

Coal consumption in the coming years may support significant growth in global electricity demand. However, it will be displaced by other energy sources – renewable and nuclear – and the emergence of new volumes of LNG on the market.

Coal use in the industrial sector will decline by less than 1% per year until the end of the decade. However, this slight decline is expected to be offset by an increase in the number of gasification plants, mainly in China.

It should be noted that the European Commission may finance a much larger share of research in the coal and steel industries from 2027. If the bloc goes ahead with this proposal, the EU Research Fund for Coal and Steel (RFCS) will finance 70% of corporate and 100% of academic research in the field of green initiatives (currently, 50% of both are supported).