I have just had a look at the EIA coal figures for 2005. I had copied the 2004 figures to an excel spreadsheet last year so I could check to see what differences there were. I was expecting a few minor changes here and there but some countries listed below have very big differences. Do these figures mean reserve reporting is getting better or coal reserve reporting makes oil reserve reporting look squeaky clean?

World Coal Estimates in    Millions of short Tons       
         Anthracite                  Lignite
Country          2004     2005           2004      2005
Brazil                                     13,149   11,148
Germany        25,353       202         47,399    7,227
UK              1,102       243          551        0
Hungary                                     1,209    3,482
Poland        22,377       15,432       2,050        0
Iran           1,885          462       
Botswana       4,740           44       
Japan            852          396       
China         68,564       68,564        57,651  57,651
(Sorry  couldn't get the columns lined up properly)
China has exactly the same totals despite using approximately 2,000 miilions tons last year.
UK which should be good at reporting, "lost" or "burnt" an astonishing amount of coal during 2005. Is it under  Scargill's bed? Lots of countries in South America, Middle East, Asia and Africa have no coal. From the EIA figures it seems unlikely that Henry Groppe's idea of using coal substitution in the third world will happen. Does anyone have a better source or a more believeable set of figures? Many countries (like USA and China) showed no change in reserves from 2004 to 2005. Are they copying OPEC's idea on reserve numbers? Perhaps the coal situation is worse than it appears?
The link to EIA coal reserves is:-
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/coal.html#Reserves