A strategically important coal trade relationship is rapidly taking shape between the United States and India.
This week, an Indian delegation led by Ministry of Coal Additional Secretary Shri Sanoj Kumar Jha and dignitaries from India’s coal, power and steel sectors, is visiting North Dakota, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C., for a series of meetings with American coal producers, technology leaders and energy officials.
The trip comes as India works to meet soaring electricity demand, strengthen its energy security and build the world’s fastest-growing steel industry; high-quality U.S. coal is meeting an ever-larger share of India’s needs. In fact, for U.S. coal suppliers, India has emerged as the leading destination for exports.
The U.S.-India coal trade has always been robust but is finding a new gear following a February interim trade agreement that will see India purchase $500 billion in U.S. products over five years, including energy and metallurgical coal.
In 2021, the U.S. supplied just 8% of Indian metallurgical coal imports but by 2025 it was 15% and growing. Notably, following the signing of the interim trade agreement and in response to the conflict with Iran, U.S. coal exports to India jumped more than 1.2 million short tons from February to March of this year.
India has become exceptionally important for U.S. exports, now taking roughly a third of total metallurgical and steam volumes. High-quality U.S. metallurgical coal is particularly in demand. From May 2025 to May 2026, monthly U.S. metallurgical coal exports to India more than doubled, rising from 494,000 tons to 1.027 million tons.
Steel Ambitions Drive Demand
U.S. coal is not only helping meet rising demand but underpinning Indian energy security through diversification. Australia has long dominated India’s steel-making coal imports. But India has worked diligently to diversify its sources of supply reducing Australia’s share of imports from 72% in 2021 to 43% in 2025. The U.S. has emerged as India’s second largest overseas supplier.
India’s ambitious plans to scale up its steel sector are driving demand. India is in fact leading global growth in steelmaking capacity, accounting for 42% of all planned projects worldwide according to a recent Global Energy Monitor report. India is developing 357 million metric tons per year of new steel capacity, fully triple that of China’s capacity expansion.
Energy Security Built on Coal
India is also leaning on coal to meet soaring power demand and as an alternative to natural gas, LNG and oil for fertilizer and petrochemical production. India has fully tripled its investments in coal in the past decade.
In 2025, India advanced plans for nearly 28 gigawatts of new and reactivated coal plants. And India’s government has also set a goal of adding 100 gigawatts of new coal generating capacity over the next seven years. For a country facing rapidly rising electricity demand, expanding industrial needs and breakneck economic growth, coal remains irreplaceable.
Nowhere is India’s coal-centered energy-security strategy clearer than in its push for coal gasification. India recently approved a nearly $4 billion initiative to expand coal gasification capacity. The goal is to convert coal into synthetic gas and industrial feedstocks that would otherwise depend on volatile LNG and oil markets. India is also advancing coal-to-chemicals and coal-to-liquids technologies as part of a broader strategy to insulate its economy from geopolitical energy shocks.
India is building the power system and industrial economy of the future, and U.S. coal is increasingly important to supplying it. With Indian coal demand expected to only grow, this is a trade relationship poised for rapid growth as well.
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