Coal can be found in every continent in the world
Coal is found in every continent in the world, and like oil and gas is an internationally traded commodity. In 1999 the leading world producers of coal were as shown in the tables shown below.
Total Global Hard Coal Production:
| 1998 | 3,656 million tonnes (Mt) |
| 1978 | 2,626 Mt - 40% growth over past 20 years |
Coal provides around 26% of global primary energy needs and generates about 37% of the world's electricity. Of the total 505 million tonnes of hard coal traded internationally in 1997, some 60% was thermal coal and about 40% coking coal.
Coal in Electricity Generation: coal is the major fuel used for generating electricity worldwide - countries heavily dependent on coal for electricity include (1998):
Current coal reserve/production ratios confirm over 200 years of resource availability.
Of all the fossil fuels, coal is by far the most plentiful in the world. It has been estimated that, as at 1996, there are around one thousand billion (1 x 1012) tonnes of total coal reserves economically accessible using current mining technology, approximately half of it being hard coal.
In Great Britain there is in excess of 400 million tonnes of proven coal reserves indentified, which at present extraction rates would last approx. 20 years.