Coal bank financing near $117bn: risk and project signals for engineers
Reviewed by Tom Sullivan
First reported on MINING.com
30 Second Briefing
Global coal financing has held near $117 billion a year since COP26, with Urgewald tracking $467 billion in loans and underwriting from 744 banks to thermal coal companies between 2022 and 2025, 62% of it from Chinese lenders and 14% from US banks. EU-headquartered banks cut annual coal financing 46% to $2.6 billion by 2025, while UK banks increased support 17%, led by Barclays at $5.7 billion over four years and a 34% annual rise to $1.6 billion. In contrast, Chinese annual coal financing climbed to $75 billion, US banks to $16.7 billion, and South Korean banks more than doubled exposure to $1.75 billion, signalling capital is concentrating in jurisdictions with weaker coal policies.
Technical Brief
- Urgewald’s dataset covers 744 commercial banks financing companies across the thermal coal value chain.
- EU-headquartered banks cut coal financing from $4.8 billion in 2022 to $2.6 billion in 2025.
- Barclays’ cumulative $5.7 billion over four years makes it the largest European coal financier.
- HSBC more than doubled annual coal financing to $414 million over the period.
- NatWest halved coal exposure after committing to phase out coal lending in the UK by 2024.
- Malaysian banks’ coal financing fell 88% to $92 million in 2025 after new coal restrictions.
- Thai, Taiwanese and Indian banks reduced coal financing by 74%, 53% and 19% respectively.
- Japan’s coal financing dipped to $5.9 billion in 2024 then rebounded to $6.8 billion in 2025.
- Three megabanks—Mizuho, MUFG and SMFG—accounted for 80% of Japanese coal financing.
- India added 88 GW of solar and wind versus 14 GW new coal capacity over two years.
Our Take
Glencore’s continued prominence in coal, including at the Cerrejón mine in Colombia, sits alongside its push into critical minerals and battery recycling in other recent pieces, signalling that large diversified traders are managing parallel ‘sunset’ coal and ‘sunrise’ energy-transition portfolios rather than exiting coal outright.
The concentration of coal financing among major US and Asian lenders such as JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Mizuho Financial Group and MUFG means that any future tightening of internal coal policies at just a handful of banks could materially affect funding costs for new coal capacity in Asia, where most pipeline projects sit.
Within our 114 Policy stories, coal and thermal coal repeatedly appear in contexts where banks’ public sustainability pledges diverge from actual lending, suggesting that project sponsors in countries like India and Indonesia can still access sizeable debt for coal build-out even as solar and wind capacity additions accelerate on the ground.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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