About $700million of Australian coal has been blocked from Chinese ports, in the latest escalation of trade tension between the two countries. A total of 53 ships carrying over 5.7 million tonnes of Australia's coal are still waiting to dock off several ports in China's industrial north. Coal is Australia's second most valuable resource behind iron ore, and last year miners shipped $10billion of metallurgic coal and $7billion of thermal coal to China. In the case of coal, China's Foreign Ministry attributed the month-long delays to 'environmental checks'. As payback Chinese companies were told to boycott Australian exports including barley, sugar, red wine, logs, lobster, copper - and coal.

Source: Daily Mail November 25, 2020 23:54 UTC