* China's coal demand growth to 2020 may be minimal -Macquarie
* API2 2016 coal futures eye sub$50/mt for 1st time since 2003
By Henning Gloystein
SINGAPORE, Sept 16 (Reuters) - Coal prices have slid again, with key physical benchmarks now below levels seen during the financial crisis of 2008/2009 and European futures eyeing a fall below $50 a tonne for the first time since 2003.
Europe's Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp, Australia's Newcastle and South Africa's Richards Bay benchmarks have dropped to between $51 and $58 per tonne, lower than during the height of the global financial crisis in 2009, or about 60 percent off their last peak in 2011 and 75 percent below all-time highs hit in 2008.
The low prices have mainly been a result of high output following large capacity expansions during the past years clashing with increasingly slow demand especially in Asia, which was the main driver for growth in the past years.
And analysts said that the outlook, especially in China, remained weak.
"An official from a policy think tank recently suggested that China's coal consumption could be contained within 3.9 billion tonnes (bt) by 2020. This is much lower than the earlier target of 4.2 bt for 2020 proposed late last year in the Energy Development Strategy Roadmap 2014-20 (EDSR)," Macquarie said.
The bank said that because current consumption was between 3.5-3.9 bt, that "effectively leaves no room for (demand) growth".
In China, the world's biggest coal importer, demand is weakening as its economy grows at the slowest pace in decades.
Beijing is also trying to fight choking pollution, to which coal contributes, as well as supporting local miners against imports.
As a result, January-August coal imports were down 31.3 percent over the same period last year, and there is even talk of China becoming a coal exporter.
In India, demand is also stalling despite healthy economic growth, thanks largely to improved output from state miner Coal India COAL.NS .
The bleak outlook also hit futures contracts, where benchmark API2 2016 coal prices last settled at $50.50 a tonne, with many traders expecting an imminent fall below $50 for the first time since 2003.
"Oil, physical coal, the economies in Asia: all point south at the moment, so unless there's a sudden spike this week, I'd expect API2 '16 to dip below $50 very soon," one coal trader said.
Oil futures, the world's most traded commodity, have lost 60 percent in their value since 2014 as near record production has been met by increasingly slow demand.