The Anthracite Coal market in India has continued to remain lackluster in the absence of demand. Indian buyers have preferred alternate fuels, resulting in sluggish demand for the coal.
However, there was an upscale in the global offers due to the shortage in Breeze Coke and the rising Coking Coal prices. Anthracite Coal could be used interchangeably with Breeze Coke and also could be blended with Coking Coal during the coke making process. Prices of Anthracite Coal are thus co-related with the two commodities.
The latest offers for Anthracite Coal are assessed at around USD 145/MT CFR India, a slight rise of around USD 2/MT over the week-ago offers.
Source: CoalMint Research
Akin to the Indian market, the global demand is also in the process of shrinking. In Ukraine, one of the top consumers of the coal, will completely eliminate its reliance on the coal by 2019, according to the inputs received. The power plants there will be modified to enable usage of Thermal Coal, which is abundantly available in that country.
In the path of accomplishing the plan, the consumption of the coal in the country will be reduced to around 3 MnT in 2018 from around 7 MnT in 2017. In 2016, the consumption was at 10 MnT.
Ukraine, once a major producer of Anthracite Coal, meets its demand for the coal through imports from Russia and South Africa as the indigenous mines were lost in a military conflict with pro-Russian rebels in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.
In India, the imports were insignificant as there was almost no demand. During the 1-20 Dec’17 period, only two import consignments, of only 50,700 MT cumulatively, had landed at Indian ports, according to the data compiled by CoalMint Research.
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