Australia, the world’s largest producer of coking coal, remains at the forefront of new coal developments. AME forecasts that Australia will supply 200Mt of metallurgical coal bound to the global export market in 2020.

Australia's Hunter Valley Coal Chain (HVCC) is the largest coal export operation in the world. It consists of coal producers, rail services, coal loading and portside services.

Shandong Province has been China's predominant oil refining region for decades, surviving multiple government crackdowns and stiff competition from larger state-run refiners, to establish a niche in the global oil market.

The United States was the fourth largest producer of crude steel in 2019, with output of 87.9Mt. Most of the steel was produced at mini-mills operating electric-arc-furnaces (EAFs), predominantly melting scrap steel and accounting for nearly ~70% of the country's production. This is the inverse to the global industry where ~75% of steel is produced via the blast-furnace/basic oxygen furnace (BF/BOF) route at integrated steel plants.

On 6 June 2020, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Counties (“OPEC”) and leading oil producing ally countries referred to collectively as “OPEC+”, unanimously agreed to extend production cuts of approximately 10 million barrels per day through the end of July.

The analysis conducted on behalf of the World Gold Council that we discussed in Parts 1 & 2 (Gold Outlooks May, June 2020) clearly identified that the majority of gold mining emissions are due to fossil fuels used in electricity production, whether bought from the grid or generated on-site.

Massive increases in Chinese smelting capacity which saw the country reach and subsequently exceed 50% of world production in 2015 has seen the emergence of homegrown technology exceeding technical metrics of established Western technology providers.

Global LNG demand has been savaged by the coronavirus pandemic as well as a warmer than expected winter in the Northern Hemisphere. As a result, the market is oversupplied and now prices for spot LNG cargoes are expected to remain low well into 2021.