Indian Steel Makers Urge Steel Ministry to Withdraw 2.5% Coking Coal Import Duty

The imposition of 2.5% import duty on imports of Coking Coal into India is clearly putting additional pressure on the country's steel makers due to the deficiency of the coal in the country.

Coking Coal is predominantly consumed by the steel industry, which typically needs around 900 kg of the coal for producing 1 ton of steel. Coking Coal is not sufficiently available in the country, which has a huge coal reserve of around 300 billion ton. Coking Coal reserves constitute roughly around 10% in the entire reserve in the country.

Due to demand and supply imbalance, Coking Coal has to be imported from countries, like Australia, South Africa and others.

Demand for Coking Coal is constantly on the rise in the country. Taking into account the growing steel industry in the country, consumption of the coal could be expected to reach around 96 MnT (annually) by 2020.

To offset the impact of the import duty, a section of steel producers in India have recently exhorted the Steel Ministry to take the necessary steps to withdraw the duty. The Steel Ministry, in turn, had assured the producers of referring their proposal to the Finance Ministry for consideration in the forth-coming budget.

For Coking Coal import data, please refer to the Statistics section of the website.