Met coke prices have been on the rise since the beginning of this month — resurging steel production has kept pushing up metallurgical coke prices in China, for both domestic sales and exports. This rebound in the Chinese coke market has resulted in strengthening of spot prices of the steelmaking raw material in the global commodity markets.
Notably, China is the biggest exporter of metallurgical coke, accounting for around two-thirds of global seaborne spot supply — India imports mainly from China; in spite of being the fourth largest producer of met coke.
Even as India’s overall met coke consumption, mostly by steel companies, has remained stagnant, the country’s imports have increased, indicating that demand for domestically produced met coke has declined over the past few years.
Presently also, trading activity remains thin in the Indian market and has yet to pick up as buyers are tentative in view of the high volatility in prices.
Accordingly, the Indian met coke manufacturers are heard to be in wait-and-see mode and are expected to hike their prices when there is substantial improvement in demand.
On the pricing front, latest offers for the 64% CSR met coke have gone up to USD 347/MT FOB China, higher by USD 7/MT over the week-ago assessment. Similarly, offers for the 62% CSR met coke are assessed to be at about USD 337/MT FOB China, higher by USD 7/MT than the last week.
For Indian buyers, these offers amount to USD 363/MT and USD 353/MT respectively on CNF India basis.
The current ex-works prices for the Blast Furnace grade in India stay at INR 26,000/MT (east coast) and INR 27,500/MT (west coast); both these prices are unchanged compared with the preceding weekly assessment.
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