THERMAL coal futures in China saw their biggest weekly fall in more than five years Friday as the country’s top economic planner said there was more room to adjust coal prices after its recent investigations into producers.

“Initial results showed coal production costs are significantly lower than current spot coal prices,” the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), which has been heavily involved in efforts to boost coal supply and ease China’s power shortages, said in a statement.

The most-traded thermal coal futures contract on the Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange hit its lower limit of 10 percent Friday before closing down 8.6 percent. It was down 27.6 percent for the week, the biggest weekly decline since September 2016.

The contract then fell as much as 7.7 percent in Friday’s night session to 941 yuan (US$147) a ton, its lowest since Sept. 10 and bringing its total decline from the record 1,982 yuan Oct. 19 up to 52.5 percent. It is still up around 80 percent this year.

Physical coal prices have not dropped at the same speed, however. Spot prices at the port of Guangzhou slumped by almost 20 percent last week but are still twice as high as the futures price at almost 2,000 yuan a ton.

Traders have said they are scrambling for information on spot coal transactions due to a lack of accurate quotations by index providers in China.

Later Friday, the NDRC said coal inventories in China had rebounded to more than 100 million tons, up by 25 million tons from end-September as average daily supply has recently exceeded consumption by 2 million tons.

Some 12.5 million tons of those inventories are held by power plants in China’s northeast, where the winter heating season has already begun, said the NDRC, adding that was up more than 6 million tons from late September and equal to year-ago levels. (SD-Agencies)