China’s thermal coal futures fell by their trading limit for the third evening session in a row on Thursday, extending losses triggered by signs Beijing may intervene to cool surging prices and ease a widespread power crunch. China is pushing miners to ramp up coal production and is increasing imports so that power stations can rebuild stockpiles before the winter heating season, but analysts say shortages are likely to persist for at least another few months. The state planner, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), said on Tuesday it was studying ways of intervening to lower coal prices and would take all necessary steps to bring them into a reasonable range. At the start of Thursday’s night session on the Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange, the most-active thermal coal futures contract, for delivery in January, plummeted the maximum 14% to 1,365 yuan ($213) per tonne. […]