There was a marginal decrement in Coking Coal imports in India in Sep’17 that was mainly due to the sky-rocketing prices of the coal. The prices of the coal, however, moderated towards the end of the month due to the gradual withdrawal of demand.
Import demand for Coking Coal started losing momentum in Australia by the last week of Sep’17, when bearish sentiments started to prevail among the steel makers in China over the mandate of the Chinese government to cut-down steel production by 50% during the mid-Nov’17 to mid-Mar’18 period in order to curb atmospheric pollution. Steel producers in China had lowered imports of the coal as a result.
According to the import data collected by CoalMint Research, around 4.49 MnT of Coking Coal was imported in India in Sep’17, and that was marginally lower by around 0.44% over the imports of around 4.51 MnT in Aug’17.
Source: CoalMint Research
On a year-on-year comparison, the imports in Sep’17 were around 16.93% higher than the imports of 3.84 MnT in Sep’16.
A break-up of the imports during the month in terms of the countries of import shows that the imports from Australia and Canada were higher than the previous month, but that from the other countries had fallen behind the preceding month’s import volumes.
| Quantity in MnT | |||
| ORIGIN | Sep’17 | Aug’17 | Change(%) |
| Australia | 3.72 | 3.52 | 5.68 |
| Canada | 0.35 | 0.18 | 94.44 |
| Mozambique | 0.27 | 0.38 | -28.95 |
| Russia | 0.03 | 0.12 | -75.00 |
| USA | 0.12 | 0.22 | -45.45 |
| Others | 0 | 0.11 | -100.00 |
| TOTAL | 4.49 | 4.52 | -0.66 |
Source: CoalMint Research
Among the various ports in India, the Paradip port had handled the highest volume of import traffic during the month; followed by the Mormugao and Haldia ports.
Source: CoalMint Research
The major importers were: Bhushan Steel, Jindal Steel & Power, SAIL, Tata Steel, Bengal Energy, JSW Steel, Electrosteel, Saraougi Group, RINL, Rawmet Commodity, Vedanta, among others.
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