The Indian government is collaborating with domestic steel companies to create a single platform to import coking coal to meet domestic demand of the raw material and leveraging combined common purchase to leverage pricing, secretary, ministry of steel, Nagendra Nath Sinha said in a statement on Monday.
He said that Indian steel companies like Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL), Jindal Steel and Power Limited (JSPL). JSW Steel Limited and Tata Steel imported coking coal based on their individual requirement of the raw material and this ‘fragmented’ approach in purchases resulted in having limited leverage with miners abroad.
Hence, government is taking a lead in forming a common platform where supply contracts are finalised based on common requirement of local steel mills which would ensure higher volumes in a single contract and higher leverage with suppliers, he said.
India imports most of its coking coal from Australia, America, Canada and Russia. But we need to diversify our sources," Sinha said
"It's a challenge for individual steel manufacturers to come together and buy coking coal, but if the government takes the lead, we can have a coking-coal buyers' consortium," said Jindal Stainless, CEO Abhyuday Jindal, said in a statement.
