Met Coke Import Prices Undergo Sharp Increase

Seaborne metallurgical coke prices have continued to edge up this week in light of the current strong sentiments in China -- the country's resurging steel production has supported the escalation of coke and coal prices for both domestic sales and exports.

Notably, China is the biggest exporter of metallurgical coke, accounting for around two-thirds of global seaborne spot supply.

In the Chinese met coke segment, market participants believe that there is still room for domestic coke prices to increase -- especially northern China's coke prices would rise as steel mills would look to increase their coke inventories for resuming normal production rates post winter curtailments.

However, the upswing in the global prices has still not visibly impacted the end market demand for met coke in India.

A likely explanation to this softened trading activity in the Indian market is that the industrial buyers have already replenished their metallurgical coal stocks well in advance of the monsoon season.

PRICING TREND
Latest offers for the 64% CSR met coke have gone up to around USD 358/MT FOB China, while, offers for the 62% CSR met coke are assessed to be at about USD 348/MT FOB China; both these offers are higher by USD 5/MT over the week-ago rates.

For Indian buyers, these offers amount to USD 374/MT and USD 364/MT respectively on CNF basis.

Source: CoalMint Research

Nevertheless, in India indigenously produced met coke prices have continued to remain unchanged from the rates that prevailed in the previous week, though market analysts are projecting the prices to rise in accordance with the increasing import offers in the near term.

The current ex-works prices of the Blast Furnace grade are hovering around INR 26,000/MT (east coast) and in the range of INR 27,000 to 28,000/MT (west coast).