Indian Steel giants SAIL and Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL) will get coking coal
cheaper by up to $7 (around Rs 370)/MT from Australian suppliers in the
current quarter, a source in the Steel Ministry said.
An Empowered Joint Committee, which sets prices on quarterly
basis for the two steel makers, has fixed the price at $161/MT for hard
coking coal (HCC) and $138/MT for soft coking coal for the current quarter.
“Prices have been finalized by the Empowered Joint Committee
of SAIL and RINL with major Australian coal suppliers for the fourth quarter.
The quarterly prices are lower than previous quarter's prices, by about $4-5/MT in case of hard coking coal and $7/MT in case of soft coking coal,” the
source said.
The committee negotiates the rates taking the prices settled
by the Japanese steel mills and others as the benchmark. The annual requirement
for the two firms is tied up at the beginning of the year and the same is
confirmed and received every quarter.
The source further said the lower prices could be a boon for
both SAIL and RINL to trim up their bottomline for the fourth quarter, particularly following a dull October-December quarter due to subdued demand
for steel in the country.
Generally it requires around one ton coking coal to produce a
ton of steel. The need for iron ore is a little higher at 1.6 ton.
SAIL, which produced 92.52 lakh tons of saleable steel in
the first nine months of the current fiscal compared to the corresponding
period last fiscal, imports around 70% of its coking coal requirement.
Vizag-based RINL, having a
capacity of three million ton per annum steel-making imports its entire
requirement of coking coal.
Hit by higher coking coal prices, sales realization of SAIL
fell by 8.39 % to Rs 4,108 crore while that of RINL by 24.89 % to Rs 1,147
crore in December 2012.
Sourced
Leave a Reply