Coking coal & Iron ore prices to dip in the near future: SAIL

CS Verma, Chairman of SAIL in an interview said that there
is possibility in correction of both Coking Coal & Iron ore prices.

Speaking about the Coking coal prices he said, “We are not
having any inventory of coking coal which was bought at high cost of USD
300-330 per tonne. Those were the times when there were heavy floods in
Australia, and all the major coal mining companies introduced force majeure
conditions. This happened last year, December 2010, but now all the companies
they have resumed normal operations and normal mining activities are going on
in Australia.  With the passage of time, coking-coal prices are
softening. 

In April 2010, the coking-coal prices internationally were
prevailing at about USD 125 per tonne. Then it went up to a level of about USD
200 per tonne by December 2010 and after this force majeure conditions by the
Australian companies, it went up to the level of about USD 325 per tonne. And today they are prevailing at the level of somewhere between USD 200-220 per tonne. In fact, some companies are selling
less than USD 200 per tonne too, and in the times to come, I foresee these
coking coal prices will stabilize further.

The iron ore prices are prevailing above USD 140-145 per
tonne now, and even this is too high a level. Iron ore prices at some spell of
time, three months back were above USD 125-130 per tonne. I think in times to
come, there is a possibility of iron ore prices further coming down, he said
when asked about Iron ore prices.