Market indications show that good news for Met Coke buyers is coming.
Met Coke prices in the domestic markets of China have started to decline; and some traders in China, contacted by CoalMint, said that the price decline was due to the combined impact of poor demand and sinking Coking Coal prices. Purchases of Met Coke have been low as the prices were significantly higher that prompted the sellers in that country to reduce their prices to encourage buying.
In the Chinese market, prices of Met Coke have moved down to around Yuan 1,900 to 2,000/MT, across various grades. The price range is lower by at least Yuan 100/MT than the earlier prices.
In the line with the domestic prices, Met Coke export offers also have gone down. Offers for the 64% CSR Met Coke have slid to around USD 373/MT FoB China, a drop of around USD 11/MT over the week-ago rates. Exhibiting a similar trend, offers for the 62% CSR Met Coke also have dropped by around USD 11/MT against the offers in the last week to around USD 363/MT FoB China.
Source: CoalMint Research
For Indian buyers, these offers amount to: USD 389/MT and USD 379/MT respectively on CFR India basis.
In a communication with a trader in the western India, he commented, ”The market is cold now, no sales are there.” His comment virtually captures the entire state of affairs in the Indian Met Coke market. There is almost nil demand in the Met Coke market in India as the buyers are waiting for the export offers to decline to the lowest possible.
Indian Met Coke producers are also having no reason to revise their ex-works prices in such an environment. The prices thus have undergone no change.
The current ex-works prices for the Blast Furnace grade in India are: INR 25,000/MT (east coast); and INR 27,000/MT, INR 27,500/MT and INR 32,500/MT(west coast).
Source: CoalMint Research
IMPORTS
During the first half of Jan’18, around 186 ’000MT of Met Coke was imported in India, data compiled by CoalMint Research shows.
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