“For some, they're only operating because to shut down would actually involve a bigger loss and what I mean by that is that even if they shut down, they would still be incurring a lot of their fixed costs such as their rail and port charges,” he told the ABC’s 7.30 program.

“So, mines are doing their sums at the moment and deciding whether it's a smaller loss to stay open or shut down.”

The show claimed that about a third of Australian coal exporters were losing money.

Wood Mackenzie coal analyst Ben Willacy recently estimated that 13 metallurgical coal operations in Australia were producing at a loss.

However, this call was made before China surprisingly revived coal import taxes that were scrapped years ago, which became effective from this week.

Roche still has faith in global coal markets.

“It's not that demand is falling, demand is growing for coal, both thermal coal and metallurgical coal,” he told the TV program.

“India's going to treble its imports of coal and Australia's going to be a big source of that coal and no one has actually found a way of making steel without coking coal and we're the world's biggest exporter of coking coal.”

Various coal mines and companies agreed to long-term “take or pay” rail and port commitments during the hectic coal boom of recent years.