China's coking coal prices dip further, sales slack

China's coking coal prices edged lower on 5 June, as trades of coking coal stayed relatively sluggish, according to market sources.

In North China's Shanxi province, prices of more coking coal grades recorded further declines yesterday, impacted by the relatively stable coal supply and light downstream demand for the feed material.

The same day, deal failures in the domestic coking coal auction market tracked higher, accounting for a larger 18.7% of all cargoes totalling 759,000 t offered in auctions yesterday, compared to the prior day's 8.8%. Though the trading volume rebounded from the prior day, Mysteel's tracking data showed.

The lukewarm buying activities were mainly attributed to the fact that the country's finished steel prices still showed no signs of improvement, which has affected mills' profitability and dented their appetite for coking coal to some extent, Mysteel Global learned.

In parallel, Mysteel's data showed that stocks of processed coal at the 523 Chinese coking coal mines it surveys climbed by 23,800 t on week to about 2.77 million tonnes (mnt) over 30 May-5 June.

China's seaborne import coking coal market still faced sluggish trading activity yesterday as the sentiment was dented by the softening coking coal futures. Coking coal futures prices on the Dalian Commodity Exchange (DCE) recorded a decline yesterday, with the most-traded coking coal contract for September delivery falling by 0.96% during daytime trading.

The trading price of Russia-mined Inagli fat coal declined by RMB 10/t to RMB 1,510/t, on ex-warehouse basis at Jingtang port in North China's Hebei province and with VAT, Mysteel's data showed.