About Sxcoal

Sxcoal

Sxcoal is the coal intelligence and pricing platform operated by Fenwei Digital Information Technology Co., Ltd., known as Fenwei Energy, of Taiyuan, Shanxi province. It describes itself as the most popular website for China's coal industry and a must-have information platform for coal professionals. In a country that produces and consumes more coal than any other, Sxcoal functions as the specialist news, data and index service for the industry: publishing daily price assessments, mine surveys, trade data and analysis for thermal coal, coking coal and coke, in both Chinese and English.

Origins and history

According to its own About Us account, Sxcoal was established in 1998 and came online in 2004. Fenwei began offering third-party insights and market research services to domestic and international companies in the early stages of market-oriented reforms in China's coal sector, when the industry was moving away from administered allocation and participants first needed independent price discovery. The company's earlier English name, Shanxi Fenwei Energy Consulting Co., reflects those consulting origins. Headquartering the business in Taiyuan placed it in the capital of Shanxi, China's most important coal-producing province, close to the mines, railways and trading companies whose activity the platform exists to measure. From that base, Fenwei grew from a regional consultancy into the operator of a national coal data platform.

The Fenwei research operation

Fenwei states that it is supported by a professional research team of roughly one hundred specialists, providing market news, information, consulting, benchmark indices and digitalisation solutions for coal and coke enterprises. Its method is survey-based. Published examples of its work show daily surveys of thermal and coking coal mines in the main northern production areas, tracking which mines have raised or lowered prices and which have suspended production; a morning market report in October 2026 described a survey of one hundred and seventeen mines in a single day's price check. Fenwei also tracks customs clearance, inventories and trading of Mongolian coal at border ports in real time, extending its survey approach to China's most important source of imported coking coal. This ground-level data collection, repeated daily across producing regions and ports, is the raw material from which Sxcoal's prices and indices are built.

The China Coal Index (CCI)

Fenwei's best-known product is the Fenwei CCI — China Coal Index — series, launched in 2012 and described by the company as the most watched Chinese coal price index globally. Fenwei states that it has established a systematic, comprehensive coal and coke index system providing transparent, reliable price benchmarks for the industry. The thermal coal side of the series included the jointly published CCI 1, CCI 2, CCI 7 and CCI 8 indices, while Sxcoal's daily reporting continues to quote CCI benchmarks such as the CCI 5500 assessment for five thousand five hundred kilocalorie coal at northern ports. For imported Mongolian coal, Fenwei maintains a China-delivered index system of more than twenty indices covering major border ports such as Ganqimaodu, Ceke, Mandula and Zhuengadabuqi, as well as transfer hubs including Jinquan and Shaheyi, providing pricing benchmarks for cross-border trade.

Partnership with Platts

Fenwei's international standing was formalised through its partnership with Platts, the global energy and commodities information provider. Platts and Fenwei formed a commercial partnership in October 2013 to serve the Chinese market, jointly producing China Coal Index assessments. In April 2015 the two companies deepened the partnership by launching a new independent, editorially assessed metallurgical coal price series, China Coal Index — Metallurgical (CCI Met), comprising five daily assessments: CCI Met Shanxi Premium Low Vol, CCI Met Shanxi High Sulfur Premium Low Vol, CCI Met North China Fat Coal, CCI Met Shanxi PCI and CCI Met Shandong Semi Soft. The assessments reflect the transactable value of metallurgical coal in Chinese yuan per tonne and were accompanied by market commentary on the factors influencing daily price movements. They were published in Platts outlets including SBB Steel Markets Daily, Coal Trader International and its metals and coal alert services, as well as through Fenwei's Mandarin and English China Coal Resource websites and its Daily Market Watch and China Coal Weekly reports — giving a Taiyuan-based consultancy's prices a global distribution channel.

News and daily publications

Sxcoal operates as a daily news service as well as an index provider. Its English site publishes the Sxcoal Morning Brief, a structured daily summary covering market prices, supply and production, trade flows and market sentiment, reporting items such as northern port price assessments, mine-level price changes across its survey sample, coke and coking coal futures settlements, railway maintenance affecting coal transport, and the results of major Chinese coal companies. Longer-form output includes market studies such as its China Thermal Coal Market Study and outlook reports, which review policy, demand, production, supply, prices and imports and exports. Fenwei also organises industry gatherings, including the China Coal Market Conference and the Thermal Coal Market Conference held in Qinhuangdao, at which its analysts present market outlooks to miners, traders and shippers.

Consulting and digitalisation services

Beyond its public platform, Fenwei works as an independent consultancy. It describes itself as an independent consulting and data provider for the Chinese coal industry, delivering objective third-party market intelligence and research services to domestic and international enterprises. Its commissioned work has included preparing independent industry reports used in Hong Kong listing documents, in which Shanxi Fenwei was described as a leading Chinese consultancy and service provider in the coal and coke industry, compiling statistics on reserves, production and prices from its in-house database and field visits. The company also markets digitalisation solutions for coal and coke enterprises, applying its data systems to clients' own operations. In September 2026 Fenwei signed a memorandum of understanding with the Mongolian Coal Association to establish a framework for long-term cooperation aimed at improving regional trade efficiency and market transparency between Mongolia and China — a natural extension of its border-port data business.

Role in the coal market

China's coal market is vast, regionally fragmented and heavily influenced by policy, which makes independent, frequently updated price information unusually valuable. Sxcoal's position rests on three assets: its location in the producing heartland of Shanxi, a survey network that reports mine and port conditions daily, and an index family that — through the Platts partnership and its own English-language services — became a reference for international participants as well as domestic ones. When international media report Chinese domestic coal prices, Fenwei's indices are among the sources cited alongside official and exchange data. For miners, power generators, steelmakers, traders and shippers, Sxcoal serves as the specialist wire for a single commodity in the world's largest market for it — a narrower brief than the multi-commodity Chinese information groups, but one it has filled since the market-oriented reform era began.

Public recognition and industry role

Fenwei's standing in its home industry is reflected in the roles it is given at industry gatherings. It organises the China Coal Market Conference — the sixteenth edition was held in Qinhuangdao in 2026 — and its deputy general manager, Feng Dongbin, is invited to address international events such as Coaltrans Asia, where in September 2026 he presented China's coal price trends, trade flows and outlook to an audience drawn from more than thirty-five countries and regions, drawing on Sxcoal's exclusive industry data. At the sixteenth Thermal Coal Market Conference in Qinhuangdao in October 2026, Fenwei was recognised as a "Public-spirited Enterprise" by the Qinhuangdao Disabled Persons' Federation and the Qinhuangdao Volunteer Association for Assisting the Disabled, and received a letter of appreciation from the city's tourism and culture bureau for using its platform to connect industrial resources and support local investment promotion — small details, but ones that show a data company embedded in the civic as well as the commercial life of China's coal regions. Its memorandum of understanding with the Mongolian Coal Association, signed by Feng Dongbin and the association's president, Dr. Bymbabadagya Bayaraa, during MiningWeek & MinePro 2026, similarly positions Fenwei as an intermediary institution for the region's coal trade, not merely a reporter of it.