As Oil Prices Rise, Nations Revive Coal Mining

While Japan’s coal industry remains tiny, its revival is an example of how higher commodity prices are driving a search for resources even in some of the world’s most urbanized and developed nations.

In recent months, South Korea has experienced calls to create a domestic coal industry in order to reduce dependence on imports. In the United Kingdom, where coal’s decline became a symbol of withered industrial might, companies are increasing production and considering reopening at least one closed mine as demand for British coal rises.
“It’s now the perfect storm with demand for our coal from South Africa to China and Australia,” said Rhidian Davies, president of Energybuild, an operator of mines in South Wales that will increase production at one of its mines tenfold over the next five years.

In Japan, higher commodity prices have also unleashed soaring demand for the heavily populated nation’s other limited natural resources, including lumber and natural gas, where production has risen nearly 20 percent this year to a three-decade high.

But coal is the most potentially plentiful fossil fuel in Japan, and companies have been quick to embrace now affordable domestic supplies out of deep-rooted anxieties about Japan’s heavy reliance on imported energy.

New York Times