In mid-August (August 11-20) this year, the average prices in China of coking coal and second-grade metallurgical coke were recorded at RMB 1,300.0/mt ($184.2/mt) and RMB 1,919.3/mt ($272.0/mt) respectively, as announced by China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). While the price of coking coal decreased further, decreasing by RMB 68.6/mt ($9.7/mt) or five percent from early August (August 1-10) due to the slowdown in demand and overall negative market sentiments, the coke market followed a different trend. Second-grade metallurgical coke prices increased by RMB 74.3/mt ($10.5/mt) or four percent in the given period compared to prices in early August.
The decline of 5.0 percent in average prices of coking coal in mid-August was faster than the drop of 0.8 percent in early August, while the rise in average prices of metallurgical coke was 2.4 percentage points faster than that recorded in early August.
As previously reported by SteelOrbis, currently China is actively promoting the elimination of backward capacities in the coking industry and is inspecting plants which are allowed to continue operations. Accordingly, production of coke is gradually going down. This is the main factor which will continue to bolster coke prices in the coming period. Some market analysts even consider that coke will likely indicate sharp rises in the second half of the year, which would exert a negative impact on the steel industry due to rising costs.