Manila (Platts)--24Jan2013/544 am EST/1044 GMT

China imported 289 million mt of coal in 2012, up 57.9% year on year, a compilation of the monthly China customs data released on Tuesday showed.

Of the total imports, thermal coal comprised 35.14%, coking coal 18.55%, anthracite 11.93%, lignite 18.59% and the rest was classified as "others," the compilation showed.

For the month of December 2012, China imported 12.98 million mt of thermal coal, up 62.25% from the 8 million mt imported in December 2011, data showed.

Most of the coal imported came from Indonesia (33.05%). Next was Australia (38.18%), South Africa (12.4%), Russia (6.58%), Mongolia (2.1%), Canada (0.92%), Colombia (2.45%), the US (4.24%) and others (0.08%).

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Lignite imports last year mainly originated from Indonesia (93.27%), the Philippines (4.9%) and others (1.83%).

Chinese coal imports with a calorific value of 4,000 kcal/kg NAR are considered lignite, an industry source said.

--Cecilia Quiambao, Cecilia_quiambao@platts.com
--Edited by Haripriya Banerjee, haripriya_banerjee@platts.com

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