India’s imported metallurgical (met) coke prices continued to rally amidst rising coking coal prices and global supply tightness.
Imported volumes are also down m-o-m following the price rally.
Japan-origin CSR 64% blast furnace (BF) grade met coke delivered to India moved up 3.32% to $653/tonne (t) in the current week from its previous $632/t, an increase of $21/t w-o-w.
India-delivered Japanese met coke prices have been seeing an increase since the start of Aug’21 owing to rising coking coal prices and cargo shortage along with growing domestic demand.
With the pandemic easing, and Japan resuming chip manufacturing which had been stalled due to rising Covid-19 cases, met coke manufacturing gathered pace in the country amid increasing demand. In addition, with the continuing global price rally in coking coal and met coke we can expect Japan-origin prices to keep trending up.
In line with increasing costs, Columbian ultra-low phosphorus (ULP) nut coke import prices into India are presently hovering around $580-590/t, amidst increasing domestic ferro alloy demand and full capacity utilization by these plants.
Rising coking coal prices, declining imports
Coking coal import prices continued to rise amid a plunge in shipments.
Australian premium low-volatile (PLV) hard coking coal FOB prices in the present week are assessed at $431.45/t, up 1.13% w-o-w against $426.65/t, on strong demand for premium mid-volatile cargoes.
Import volumes, however, are showing a drop this festive season despite the strong demand due to the continuing global shortage that is leading to increasing prices.
As on 20 Oct’21, around 80,000 t of coking coal has arrived at Jaigad Port, Maharashtra, to be procured by a major steel mill.
Additionally around 0.70million tonnes (mn t) are berthed and 1.66 mn t are expected to reach the country by the end-Oct collectively from Australia, Mozambique, Canada and USA.
The total volume slated to arrive is thus at 2.45 million tonnes (mn t), significantly less by 1.77 mn t or 42% from September’s 4.22 mn t.
It was expected that with China’s ongoing crude steel production cuts, and its ban on Australian coking coal prices would soften. However, that is not happening at present.
FOB China prices for 64% CSR met coke rose a marginal 1.47% w-o-w to $691/t.
Ease in met coke imports
As on 20 Oct’21, met coke import volumes in October are expected to touch 147,754 t of which around 9,000 tonnes have already arrived at Vizag Port, to be procured by a major mill, shipped from a Columbian port.
Of the remaining 138,754 t, 42,350 t from Columbia, 33,000 t from Japan, and 63,404t from Poland are expected to reach various Indian ports by the last week of October.
Outlook
India-delivered seaborne met coke prices are expected to stay elevated since global coking coal prices are on an upward trend.
Accordingly, import volumes for both met coke and coking coal are expected to be lower.
Coking coal imports may inch up but with the domestic mills and end-users focusing more on domestic met coke procurements, it is highly likely met coke imports may dip.
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