The India Steel Association (ISA), the representative body of domestic steel companies, has sought government intervention to check rising coking coal prices, which have increased threefold to $450/mt, an official at the association said on Monday, June 13.
“Coking coal prices are something which are impacting the industry drastically and the production cost is impacted, affecting steel prices," Alok Sahay, secretary general of the ISA, said in a statement.
The official said that the price of coking coal used to be in the range of $120-130/mt around a year back and in March this year coking coal prices had peaked at about $670/mt, he added.
He said that, while iron ore is domestically available, for coking coal India needs to remain dependent on imports and meets 85 percent of its coking coal requirements through imports, mainly from Australia.
Mr. Sahay suggested that the government through bilateral talks or through a competition watchdog should look into the coal indexes, and their methodology, which is the basis for imported coking coal prices, so that they represent the true market situation.