The only region which didn't grow was Colombia, which saw a sharp ~30%YoY contraction due to strikes and other problems on mines and railways. But none of these issues will be permanent and supply is recovering.
South Africa and the US did rise to fill some of the gap, although most of the growth came from Australia and Indonesia, which grew at double digit rates.
It's difficult to know how much of this is an underlying increase in output given the vagaries of seasonal weather impacts between years. But it does suggest that the surge in output in Q4 was perhaps not driven by large destocking, as the pay back would have been much larger into Q1 of this year.
Supply is still looks too strong, although the hope is that the recent pick up in Chinese power generation in April will accelerate into the summer.
The rise to 6.2%YoY is the strongest growth in the year to date, although does come after a very weak March, with higher frequency data suggest some of the gains is more due to stronger hydro generation than coal burn.
