Photo taken on Dec. 22, 2020 shows a thermal coal yard of Huanghua Port in Cangzhou City, north China's Hebei Province. Photo: Xinhua

China's coke and coking coal futures surged by their daily limit of about 8 percent on Monday after media reports said that the largest coal import channel from Mongolia -- Ganqimaodu Port in North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region -- may suspend coal imports from Mongolia for two weeks. 

Experts said that the temporary suspension may have little influence on either country.

An anonymous source told the Global Times on Monday that the import suspension appears to be true, and it's being implemented due to the uncontrolled COVID-19 pandemic on the other side of the port. 

Since the end of April, 11 Mongolian drivers have tested positive before entering, and one of them went in and out of China eight times, according to the source. 

The two major mineral imports from Mongolia via the Ganqimaodu Port are coal and copper powder. "The port's import operations for copper powder and common commodities remain normal, but the import of coal has been suspended," said the source. He didn't reveal when the suspension will end.

Mongolia exported 28.6 million tons of coal in 2020. Traders and end users in China, Mongolia's biggest coal export destination, bought over 95 percent of those exports, according to Chinese metal market information provider Mysteel Global. About 14.55 million tons of coal, 54 percent of the total export volume, was shipped via Ganqimaodu Port, data from the local government showed.

Ganqimaodu Port is China's largest land border port, which even kept cargo moving during the global COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 with zero imported cases, according to the local government of Urad Middle Banner. 

Zhao Yang, co-founder of Chinese coal market information site Meitan Jianghu, told the Global Times on Monday that even though Ganqimaodu Port is the most important coal import channel for China, the two-week suspension may have little influence on the trading and use of coal in either China or Mongolia. 

Although China's electricity usage peak period is coming to an end, demand for thermal coal is still intensive. Another anonymous industry insider suggested that coal futures had risen because of low domestic coal output, affected by multiple safety incidents and disrupted logistics systems due to regional heavy rain. 

Zhao said that coal imported from Mongolia is mostly used in steel production, and the steam coal used in China for power generation is largely imported from Indonesia and Russia, so the suspension will not affect China's electricity supply.

"The coal import operations of Ganqimaodu Port have been suspended several times amid the global COVID-19 pandemic since the end of 2019," said Zhao.