India’s coking coal imports witnessed a marginal decline in the last month, alongside lower non-coking coal imports—primarily due to the ongoing monsoon season coupled with bearish outlook for the Indian steel sector.
Indian metallurgical coal imports have decreased by 3.65% on a month-to-month basis in July to 5.14 million tonnes (MnT), as compared to 5.33 MnT in June, as per the latest vessel lineup data compiled by CoalMint Research.
However, on a year-on-year basis, the country’s coking coal import volumes have increased by 5.89% in Jul’19, against 4.85 MnT of imports recorded in Jul’18.
Source: Vessel Line-up Data, CoalMint Research | Quantity in MnT
Country Wise India Coking Coal Import in Jul’19:
A country-wise break-up of the monthly import data reveals that the major proportion of the Indian coking coal import shipments continued to be originated from Australia, constituting the highest share of around 74%.
Indian met coal imports from Australia rose marginally by 2.6% M-o-M to 3.79 MnT in Jul’19, against 3.70 MnT in Jun’19.
Following Australia, the imports from Canada accounted for 11% share.
India’s coking coal imports from Canada rose by 13.8% M-o-M to 0.55 MnT in Jul’19 against 0.49 MnT in Jun’19.
Strikingly however, Indian coking coal imports from USA fell by 43.3% M-o-M to 0.29 MnT in Jul’19, against 0.52 MnT in Jun’19.
Although Indian imports of US coking coal have fallen, the outlook remains robust as Indian mills are expected to continue to look to the US as an alternative source of supply to Australian coking coal.
Steel manufacturing is a key part of Delhi’s Make in India campaign, which aims to triple steel output to 300 MnT by 2030-31.
In this context, it is pertinent to note that Indian imports of US coking coal had risen by 45.3% to 4.50 MnT in May this year.
Imports from Mozambique and Russia also fell by 22.3% and 24.8% respectively.
Source: CoalMint Research | Quantity in MnT
The following table presents a detailed breakup of the countries of origin during the month under review.
| Origin | Jul’19 | Jun’19 | Change |
| Australia | 3,792,053 | 3,696,237 | 2.59% |
| Canada | 554,335 | 487,035 | 13.82% |
| USA | 292,870 | 516,696 | -43.32% |
| Mozambique | 225,330 | 290,100 | -22.33% |
| Russia | 188,700 | 251,000 | -24.82% |
| Indonesia | 73,520 | 55,000 | 33.67% |
| Colombia | 10,000 | ||
| New Zealand | 35,500 | ||
| TOTAL | 5,136,808 | 5,331,568 | -3.65% |
Source: CoalMint Research | Quantity in MT
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