Domestic met coke offers in India moved up this week after remaining stable at INR 41,000-41,500/t over the past few weeks. Current offers for blast furnace (BF) grade coke (25-90mm) are being heard at INR 42,500-43,000/t in the eastern belt, while in western India offers are ranging between INR 43,000-44,000/t.
This upshot in offers can be attributed to coking coal prices continuing their uptrend, touching $285/t FOB Haypoint, Australia. Imported coking coal prices are gaining over the past two weeks amid demand revival from India after the monsoon season, and limited availability of cargoes due to heavy rains in Australia’s mining hub Queensland.
In addition, the first round of hike in China’s domestic coke prices has provided support to Indian met coke prices. China is back from the Golden Week holidays and many mines in the key coal-producing province of Shanxi are heard to be suspending operations, while coke units are cutting down operations to curb pollution ahead of a major political conference scheduled for 16 October.
Import offers for Chinese met coke to India are at $440-450/t CFR India levels for BF grade 64-65% coke, which may go up in the coming days in the event of curbs in domestic coke production, market participants informed.
Demand scenario
On the demand side, enquiries for met coke in the merchant market continues to remain steady. While Tata Steel has concluded a bulk purchase for 45,000 t last week, SAIL is in the market looking for 15,000 t. These apart, there are other enquiries for smaller parcels in the market.
So far as steel demand is concerned, the market is entering a quiet phase set to last till at least Diwali. End-users and trade channels have supposedly restocked and are just making need-based purchases. Furthermore, the big steel mills are witnessing inventory build-up and are not getting any support to the price hike of INR 500/t that they had announced in beginning of October.
Meanwhile, current trends are likely to persist till Diwali and the met coke market is expected to remain quiet.
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