Coking coal: Stocks

Why premium coking coal is far scarcer than it looks

What this tab covers How much is left and how much is held. For minerals and energy: reserves, current output, years of supply and recycling for the top five countries. For farm commodities: production, ending stocks and stocks-to-use for the top five producers (USDA, October 2026). It also covers inventories and stockpiles.

Top five countries: reserves, output and years of supply

Country	Reserves Mt proved reserves of anthracite and bituminous coal (end-2020; includes thermal grades)	Current output Mt coking coal mined (2024)	Years of supply	Recycling
United States	218,938	64.8	–	n/a
China	135,069	519	–	n/a
India	105,979	65.7	–	n/a
Australia	73,719	131	–	n/a
Russia	71,719	110	–	n/a

Reserves: Energy Institute Statistical Review 2025 (anthracite and bituminous coal, end-2020; this includes thermal grades because no coking coal reserve series is published). Output: World Mining Data 2026, coking coal 2024. Years of supply are left blank because the reserve figure covers all hard coal, not only coking coal. Mongolia (75.8 Mt, 7% of 2024 output) ranks above India and the US by output but has no separate reserve figure in the Energy Institute table.. Years of supply = reserves ÷ current output; reserves grow as prices and technology change, so this is not a countdown. No public source separates coking coal reserves by country. Reserves shown are all anthracite and bituminous coal, which contains coking coal but is mostly thermal grade, so a reserves-to-output ratio would be misleading and is left blank.

Recycling

Coking coal is consumed in ironmaking and cannot be recycled; the EU puts its end-of-life recycling input rate at 0% (EU CRM study 2023). The real substitute is steel scrap: every tonne of scrap melted in an electric arc furnace avoids roughly 0.7-0.8 t of coking coal that blast-furnace steel would need (derived from Smil 2016 coke rates, indicative). The EU's import reliance is 66%, with supply from Poland (26%), Australia (24%) and the US (20%) (EU CRM study 2023).

Coking coal has no separately reported world reserve figure. The Energy Institute's 754 billion tonnes of anthracite and bituminous coal at end-2020 include it, but only part has coking quality, and premium hard coking coal is far scarcer than thermal coal. Nothing is recycled: the EU end-of-life recycling input rate is 0%. Steel scrap is an indirect substitute, because electric-arc furnaces melt scrap without coke. Mills and ports hold working stocks, and Chinese port inventories are watched closely by traders.

Recycling

End-of-life recycling input rate in the EU: 0% of demand met from post-consumer scrap (EU CRM study 2023).