Coal is often declared yesterday’s commodity, however the numbers are proving considerably harder to retire.
Global coal demand reached a record 8.85 billion tonnes in 2025.
China and India accounted for roughly 71% of global consumption in 2024, highlighting how heavily the coal market has shifted toward Asia.
India is particularly important for Australian exporters because its growing economy, infrastructure buildout and steel requirements create a natural demand centre close to Australia.
Coal investment has not disappeared either
Capital is still flowing into the sector.
The IEA’s World Energy Investment 2026 report puts energy security firmly back among the forces shaping global investment decisions.
The market is no longer as simple as “coal versus renewables”.
Countries are simultaneously building enormous quantities of renewable generation, strengthening grids, investing in LNG, maintaining coal supply and trying to reduce emissions.
Energy security has made diversification valuable.
Steelmaking demand has made metallurgical coal harder to substitute.
Bowen Basin leading the way
If there is one part of Australia where coal’s continuing importance is impossible to miss, it is Queensland’s Bowen Basin.
From BHP (ASX:BHP) and Whitehaven Coal (ASX:WHC) to emerging developer Yari Resources (ASX:YAR), the basin remains one of the world’s most important coal districts.
The energy system is changing. The Bowen Basin is still very much in business.
Figure 1: Bowen Basin Coal Mine.
$165 billion is difficult to ignore
Coal Australia’s first Annual Coal Report puts some serious numbers around the industry.
During FY25, Australia’s coal sector contributed $164.9 billion to the economy, supported 782,243 jobs and underpinned 14,451 Australian businesses.
The sector spent $74.5 billion domestically, including $8.9 billion in wages and salaries and $52.5 billion with local businesses.
Governments did pretty well out of it too.
The industry paid $9.6 billion to state governments, including royalties, another $3.3 billion federally and $228.7 million to local governments.
For investors, those numbers matter because they help explain why coal remains embedded in regional economies, export infrastructure and government revenues even as Australia simultaneously expands renewables and works toward lower emissions.
Figure 2: Coal sector direct spend by state, 2024/25 ($ million).
Queensland sits at the centre
Queensland accounted for $38.4 billion in direct coal-sector spending during FY25 and supported an estimated 393,250 jobs.
Outside the capital cities, Mackay-Isaac-Whitsunday recorded the largest direct coal expenditure of any Australian region at $7.4 billion. The industry supported 77,596 jobs and almost 2,000 local suppliers there.
That economic footprint follows the geology.
The Bowen Basin is one of the world’s premier sources of metallurgical coal, the coal used in conventional blast-furnace steelmaking.
That distinction matters.
Thermal coal primarily supplies power generation. Metallurgical coal is an industrial feedstock for steel, which means its demand drivers are linked to construction, infrastructure, manufacturing and urbanisation.
As long as the world keeps building, steelmakers still need raw materials.
Figure 3: Coal sector total employment supported by state, 2024/25 (FTEs).
The majors are still digging
BHP (ASX:BHP) remains one of the basin’s heavyweight players through the BHP Mitsubishi Alliance, and they have the governments backing.
Just last week, the Federal Government has approved a project to extend open-cut operations at the Saraji mine’s Grevillea pit for decades to come.
BMA operates five Bowen Basin mines, Goonyella Riverside, Broadmeadow, Peak Downs, Saraji and Caval Ridge, and BHP describes the business as Australia’s largest producer and supplier of seaborne metallurgical coal. Its Hay Point terminal alone can handle more than 55 million tonnes annually.
The portfolio has become increasingly focused on higher-quality metallurgical coal, with BHP saying more than 85% of BMA production is now premium hard coking coal.
That tells investors something important.
This is not simply a bet on burning more coal.
For the majors, the Bowen Basin is increasingly about steelmaking coal quality.
Figure 4: Image from BMA’s Saraji operation.
Whitehaven went shopping
Whitehaven Coal (ASX:WHC) made its own statement on the Bowen Basin when it bought Blackwater and Daunia from BHP and Mitsubishi.
Daunia produces hard coking coal and PCI coal, while Blackwater is one of Queensland’s largest producing metallurgical coal mines and also produces some high-energy thermal coal.
The transaction effectively transformed Whitehaven from a predominantly NSW coal producer into a much larger metallurgical coal business.
Blackwater alone has roughly 80km of strike.
That is not an asset bought with a short-term view.
Yari is trying to build scale
On the smaller end of the ASX, Yari Resources (ASX:YAR) is attempting to carve out its own position in the Bowen Basin through Rolleston South and the proposed acquisition of Arcadia.
Its 100%-owned Rolleston South Project already carries a 222.9Mt JORC 2012 Coal Resource, comprising 33.7Mt Indicated and 189.2Mt Inferred.
The project sits ~40km from the Blackwater rail system, providing proximity to established export infrastructure through Gladstone.
But the bigger move came in August.
Yari entered into a binding conditional agreement to acquire 100% of the nearby Arcadia Coal Project, which hosts a reported 282Mt JORC 2012 Mineral Resource.
If it closes, Yari says its reported coal resource base would jump beyond 500Mt across Rolleston South and Arcadia.
That changes the scale of the story.
Figure 5: Arcadia Project (EPC 1054 & 1772) location and surrounding tenure.
From 78.9Mt to potentially 500Mt+
Yari’s resource growth has already been substantial.
Rolleston South carried 78.9Mt when acquired. That has since grown to 222.9Mt.
Arcadia could take the combined reported resource beyond half a billion tonnes.
For a smaller ASX company, that begins to look less like a single exploration asset and more like an emerging district position.
The next question is not simply how many tonnes exist, it is what those tonnes can ultimately become.
Yari is assessing potential export-quality thermal coal and semi-soft metallurgical applications at Rolleston South, meaning coal quality, mineability, infrastructure and development economics will become increasingly important as the company advances the projects.
The outlook
Coal’s long-term role in the global energy mix remains contested, and the IEA still expects demand to soften toward the end of the decade.
But today’s numbers tell a simpler story.
Global demand is at a record.
Australia’s industry is contributing nearly $165 billion to the economy.
Queensland is collecting billions in direct spending.
And the Bowen Basin remains packed with some of the world’s most strategically important steelmaking coal assets.
Coal may not be the commodity investors are supposed to get excited about anymore.
The Bowen Basin does not appear particularly bothered.
