Two recent reports say coal, and the mining infrastructure for it, have only a few years to go before world-wide investment in them will not be available.

Referring to the reports today the online magazine, Reneweconomy, reports that:

“CLP Holdings, the Hong Kong based company that is one of the largest power companies in Asia, said it wouldn’t invest any more money in coal-fired generation in India following the disastrous results of its latest 1,200MW investment, which is losing money from lack of access to coal and poor quality supplies. It will focus entirely, it says, on renewables such as wind and solar from now on in India.”

One report from Deutsche Bank says that China’s use of thermal coal is likely to peak within a few years, and by 2017 it could become a net exporter of thermal coal rather than a large importer.  This, says Deutsche Bank, is likely to have a significant impact on coal prices – downwards.

The other recent report on Monday this week is from credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s, which the Reneweconomy articles says:

 ”. . .  predicts credit downgrades and negative outlooks in the oil sector because of the potential carbon constraints driven by global climate change policies.

S&P says future carbon constraints need to be factored into credit assessments for the oil sector – along with uncertain future oil prices and rising operational costs – and financial models that rely on past financial performance are no longer adequate.”

The Reneweconomy article also says:

“And in the past few weeks, investment banks such as UBS, along with Macquarie Group andDeutsche Bank have all noted how the solar industry is reframing energy markets in Europe, and beyond, and turning once profitable coal and gas fired generators into marginal businesses, and forcing many to close or to embrace a more rapid change to renewables and distributed generation.“.

The times they are a’changin’. . .

M