The war in Ukraine is pushing most commodities higher, and coal is no exception. Bloomberg reported this week that the coal prices are reaching new record highs, with the Australia Newcastle benchmark hitting $446 per ton on Wednesday. The daily increase for the benchmark amounted to $140.55 per ton, which was pushed the price to the highest since 2008. In Asia, benchmark coal prices surged by 46 percent to a record. The region is the largest consumer of the dirtiest fossil fuel. Chinese buyers, in particular, have run into difficulties securing financing for Russian coal purchases because of state banks’ wariness of U.S. and European sanctions against Russia’s financial sector. Russia is the world’s third-largest exporter of coal. “Most banks have stopped issuing letters of credit after the SWIFT sanctions. As almost all contracts are dollar-denominated, we have no other way to make the payment,” one China commodity dealer […]