Canadian Production
Canadian met coal by the numbers
Canadian production
Canada produces approximately 47 Mt of coal per year, with close to 60% of it being metallurgical coal. We account for less than a percent of total world coal production, but are nearly 3% of met coal production, and over 8% of world seaborne coal exports.
Met coal is British Columbia's largest export
In 2023 BC’s mining sector generated nearly $16 billion in value to the province, and met coal made up the bulk of that. In fact, BC’s 29.9 Mt of met coal was nearly 65% of that at $10.6 billion.
Alberta is a distant second—but has the assets to gain some ground
Alberta’s steelmaking coal production is a distant second, at less than 1 Mt, but this production generated over $145 million in royalties. Alberta has high quality metallurgical coal deposits in the eastern rockies which sit tens of kilometres (or less) to the east of most of British Columbia’s met coal production.
How does Canada rank?
A purple ribbon for Canada
Canada is the 7th largest producer of met coal (6th if low quality Vietnamese coal is excluded) and the 4th largest provider of seaborne coal. The sector represents a significant economic opportunity for Canada with seaborne metallurgical coal demand set to increase for 333 Mt per year to 378 Mt per year by 2050 (Source: WoodMac, Global metallurgical coal strategic planning outlook- 2025).
