Chinese Met Coke Offers Steady with Buyers Trading Cautiously

Seaborne metallurgical coke import offers have remained fairly constant so far this week, after a continued fall in prices in the past couple of weeks, as Chinese steel markets remain sluggish.

In China's top steelmaking city of Tangshan, certain blast furnaces were heard had to have shut down due to production cut requirements making it difficult to reduce domestic coke prices.

In the beginning of the week, Northern China producers had planned to raise prices by RMB 100/MT, effective Wednesday, to ensure that their cokeries do not operate at a loss, although steel prices have yet to pick up. However, the proposed uptick saw resistance from coke buyers.

Meanwhile, the spread between Chinese 64% CSR met coke and 62% coke has widened due to supply tightness of high CSR type of coke in the market.

Further upticks in met coke offers might happen after the Chinese New Year.

PRICE ASSESSMENTS

The latest import offers for the 64% CSR met coke are assessed at around USD 368/MT FOB China, lower by about USD 0.80/MT than the average price of USD 368.80/MT in the week gone by (3-7 Dec'18).

Similarly, offers for the 62% CSR met coke have decreased to around USD 357/MT FOB China.

For Indian buyers, these offers amount to USD 384/MT and USD 373/MT respectively on CNF India basis.

Source: CoalMint Research