Met Coke Offers Drift Further Down on Falling Coking Coal Prices

Met Coke prices have been coming down due to the falling Coking Coal prices, and the demand getting lower.

In China, the prime Met Coke market, prices of Met Coke has drifted downwards in the domestic market due to shrinkage of demand. In view of the falling Coking Coal prices, buyers of Met Coke have postponed their purchases and waiting for the prices to come down to significant levels. Moreover, the Blast Furnace based steel mills in China are already well-stocked with Met Coke, ruling out necessity for immediate buying.

In a communication with a Chinese trader it was learnt that Met Coke prices in the Shandong market have come down by around Yuan 50/MT to around Yuan 1,960/MT.

As a matter of fact, China is the largest market for Met Coke, and changes there will impact all the consuming markets, including India.

PRICE TREND

Offers for the 64% CSR Met Coke were reported lower by around USD 4/MT against the week-ago offers, and those were reported at around USD 360/MT FoB China. In a similar trend, offers for the 62% CSR Met Coke were reported at around USD 350/MT FoB China, down from the offers in the week last by around USD 4/MT.

Source: CoalMint Research

On CFR India basis, these offers translate into: USD 376/MT and USD 366/MT respectively.

The buying trend among the Indian Met Coke users is now no different from its global peers. Indian Met Coke buyers have adopted a wait and watch stance as the Coking Coal price fall indicated further Met Coke price down slide in the coming days.

A trader in India commented, “The Met Coke market is quite now.” This also summarizes the state-of-affairs of the Indian Met Coke market prevailing in the country.

Source: CoalMint Research

Indian Met Coke producers are expected to lower their ex-works prices in the coming days due to the sinking Met Coke offers.

The ruling ex-works prices for the Blast Furnace grade in India are at: INR 26,500/MT(east coast) and INR 26,000-27,500/MT (west coast).

IMPORTS

There has been no spurt in Met Coke imports in India mainly due to the weak buying affinity among the buyers in the country. During the 1-19Mar’18 period, only 332,163 MT of Met Coke was imported in India, data compiled by CoalMint Research shows.