Coking Coal Spot Prices Bottom Out, Buying Likely to Resume

The Coking Coal market is quiet, without much activity, and the spot prices seem to bottom out.

The continuous fall in the Coking Coal prices has put Chinese steel makers onto the back foot, postponing purchases and waiting for the coal prices to decline to the lowest levels. There was no significant increase in import demand for the coal in the Australian market as such. However, import demand might revive as the steel makers in China are likely to resume Coking Coal imports as there is almost no prospect for the prices to recede further.

The latest offer for the Premium HCC is assessed at around USD 147/MT FoB Australia, slightly lower than that in the week last. The recent offer for the 64 Mid Vol HCC is assessed at around USD 135/MT FoB Australia, which is down by USD 5/MT over the week-ago rate.

Source: CoalMint Research

For Indian buyers, these offers translate into: USD 157/MT and USD 145/MT respectively on CFR India basis.

In a significant market development of late, the 45 year old negotiation-based quarterly price settlements between Australian coal miners and Japanese steel makers has come to an end, with spot index price based quarterly pricing methodology taking over. For the full coverage, refer to: Negotiations Exit from Quarterly Coking Coal Price Settlements, Spot Indexes Come in

IMPORTS

In the meantime, Coking Coal imports have continued to enter into India as demand for the coal was strong from the country's steel makers. During the 1-12 Jun'17 period, around 1.52 MnT of Coking Coal was imported in India, data collected by CoalMint Research shows.