In Depth: China’s Never-Ending Coal Price Woes

On the last day of China’s Labor Day holiday in early May, some truckers in Inner Mongolia weren’t taking a break. They were in a queue stretching dozens of kilometers, all waiting to load up on coal at the privately-owned Erlintu mine.

The line of idling vehicles was so long, it snaked back across the border into Shaanxi province, said Gao Jinxin, who works at a local miner in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region.