Exploring temporal and spatial evolution of global coal supply-demand and flow structure
Introduction
Coal is one of the three major energy resources in the world, accounting for 1/3 of the world's total energy use. Up to 40% of electricity is generated by coal. From the perspective of the scarcity of energy resources, the existing reserves of global coal resources are sustainable for 153 years, far longer than the 50.6 years of oil reserves and 52.5 years of natural gas reserves. The exploitation and utilization of coal resources is very important in the problems of alleviating the contradiction between the global energy supply-demand and guaranteeing the development of the world economy. Under the background of increasing global economic development and energy consumption, the spatial scales and scale effect of coal transnational flows are undergoing a series of significant changes. Viewed from the global coal supply-demand structure and transnational trade point, this paper reveals the spatial evolution of the flow structure of coal resources in recent decades and analyses the underlying reasons of the evolution. It has important practical significance for maintaining not only the balance and order of world energy supply, but also economic security.
In recent years, there are many studies regarding coal resources. In the field of coal market forecast, Lin and Liu [1] predicted China's coal peak by Logistic curves and Gaussian curves and analysed the impact of China's net coal import on the international coal market. Wang et al. [2] analysed the supply conditions and future production of coal in China. He and Lin [3] forecasted the proportion of coal in China's total energy demand using ADL-MIDAS model. Mohr and Evans [4] developed a prediction model considering the supply and demand interaction to forecast the coal production of the world. Wang et al. [5,6] predicted China's coal production capacity based on a system dynamics model. Mendelevitch [7] analysed the impact of supply-side climate policies on coal consumption by simulating global patterns of coal supply, demand, and international trade. In the field of coal trade, Rioux [8] analysed the economic impacts of debottlenecking congestion in the Chinese coal supply chain. Ekawan and Duchene [9]; Ekawan et al. [10] analysed the evolution of hard coal trade in the Atlantic and Pacific markets respectively, presents the import, export, consumption and the proportion of major countries. Zaklan et al. [11] analysed the globalization of steam coal markets and briefly analysed the market structure of world coal transportation in 2009. Warell [12] used price and shipments data and the Elzinga-Hogarty test methods to define the geographic coal markets. Paulus and Truby [13] developed a spatial equilibrium model for the global steam coal market to discuss how Chinese energy transport decisions affect the global steam coal market.
In addition, there are papers related to the study of the coal flow. Babri et al. [14] predicted international trade flows of coal. Wang et al. [15] used the centre of gravity model and presented the changes of gravity centre of the coal production and consumption. Wang et al. [5,6] analysed spatial evolution of coal transportation at coastal ports in China. Wang and Ducruet [16] discussed the spatial evolution of coal distribution in China. Sun et al. [17] analysed coal consumption in the 31 provinces and regions of China from 1995 to 2012 and discussed temporal-spatial patterns of coal consumption. Liu et al. [18] optimized China's coal flow based on matching supply and demand sides. Mou and Li [19] studied China's coal transportation quantitatively with a linear programming method that analyses the direction and volume of China's coal flows.
Analysing the above literatures, it can be learned that although there are many studies on coal resources, most of them are concerned with the prediction of the coal market and its impact on the economy. In the aspect of the spatial structure of coal resources, however, it is only analysed from the national level, and no study has been devoted to exploring the evolution of the long-term flow structure of coal resources. Accordingly, setting 1990–2016 as the study period, this paper starts with the analysis of the distribution and trade condition of global coal resources, introduces the “field” theory to study the characteristics of the coal flow, and reveals its basic flowing regular. The research conducts a comprehensive analysis of the trade and flow structure of global coal resources, and provides support for countries to formulate coal trade policies and maintains the safety of coal shipping channels.
The main contributions of this paper are as follows: ① this paper presents the evolution of the supply-demand structure of world coal for 20 years; ② this paper presents the evolution of the global coal trade structure; and ③ this paper analyses the characteristics of the evolution of flow field distributions and flow traces, and formation reasons of the evolution using “field” theory.
The remainder of paper is organized as follows. Section 2 offers the methodology and data sources used in this paper. Section 3 presents the main research results, including the flow structures of coal and the characteristics of the flow field. Section 4 presents the formation reason of the coal flow around the world. The conclusions and discussions are summarized in Section 5.
Section snippets
Methodology
In order to analyse the characteristics of flow field, including the potential, flow trace and flow types of the coal resources in different regions, the paper divides the world into 6 regions: the North America region, South and Central America region (S. & Cent. America for short), Europe and Eurasia region (Europe & Eurasia for short), Middle East region, Africa region and Asia Pacific region. The spatial structures of coal flow can be described quantitatively by analysing the coal input and
The output structure
World coal output generally showed an increasing trend. From 1990 to 2016, coal output increased from 0.21 billion t to 1.23 billion t, a total increase of 1.02 billion t, with an average annual growth rate of 6.98% (Fig. 1, Fig. 2). The main characteristics of the output structure are as follows:
- (1)
The coal output in the Asia Pacific region was significantly increased from 119.26 Mt to 746.78 Mt, an increase of 5.28 times and with an average annual increase of 7.31%, higher than the world average
Concentrated distribution of coal resources
The world's coal reserves are relatively abundant. According to the data of the BP world energy statistics yearbook, by the end of 2016, the world's coal reserves will be as high as 1139.13 billion t. If exploited at the current speed, they will last for 153 years. From the view of spatial distribution, the coal reserves of Asia Pacific, Europe & Eurasia and North America rank as the world's top three. In those regions, America, China, Russia and Australia are the major countries of coal
Conclusions and discussions
This paper analyses the temporal and spatial evolution of the distribution and flow structure of world coal resources based on the data of the reserves, production and consumption of coal issued in 1990–2016 by the BP Amoco and the UN Comtrade Database. We presented the potential, the distribution of the flow field and the trace of the flow using resources field theory, and revealed the flow structure and formation reasons of world coal resources. The main conclusions are as follows:
- (1)
In the
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Marine Soft Science Project [grant numbers JJYX201612-1].
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