China's coal output finally began to fall in July as the government tries to rein it in and avoid a crisis-like oversupply

In early 2025, China faced a problem of oversupply of coal on the domestic market, which was aggravated by falling prices and oversupply on the global market. In February, the China Coal Industry Association and the China Coal Transportation and Distribution Association issued a joint statement calling for production cuts and import and quality control. Despite these calls, coal production in China continued to grow steadily throughout the first half of the year, increasing by more than 3.8% year-on-year to 2.78 billion tonnes. But in July, this trend seemed to have been reversed and production finally began to decline. According to the National Statistical Agency, China's coal production fell by 3.8% in July to 380.99 million tonnes, the lowest level since April 2024.

The fall came after Chinese regulators announced they would inspect coal mines in eight provinces.