The current export offers of met coke variants in the global seaborne market have gone up further this week owing to higher coking coal prices; however, the upswing in the global coking coal prices has not visibly impacted the end market demand for met coke in India.
Even though market analysts are projecting the domestic met coke prices to increase in accordance with the rising import offers in the near future; the absence of strong demand in the country’s end-user markets is quite baffling.
A likely explanation to this softened trading activity in the Indian market is that the industrial buyers have already replenished their metallurgical coal stocks well in advance of the monsoon season.
Accordingly, the country’s local merchant producers of metallurgical coke are expected to react with a hike in their prices when there is a substantial resurgence in demand.
Latest offers for the 64% CSR met coke have gone up to USD 340/MT FoB China, higher by USD 9/MT over the week-ago assessment. Similarly, offers for the 62% CSR met coke are assessed to be at about USD 330/MT FoB China, higher by USD 9/MT than the last week.
On CFR India basis, these offers amount to USD 356/MT and USD 346/MT respectively.
India’s domestic met coke producers have retained their ex-works prices at the rates that prevailed in the previous week. The current ex-works prices of the Blast Furnace grade stay at around INR 26,000/MT (east coast) and INR 27,000-28,000/MT (west coast); unchanged from the preceding weekly assessments.
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