On April 2, St. Petersburg international raw material and commodity exchange held the first Russian coking coal concentrate auction, under the exchange's ‘Energy Resources' section.
The first companies to participate in the trading were Mechel Trading House, a subsidiary of Russian mining and steel group Mechel, and Raspadskiy Ugol, a subsidiary of the coking coal producer Raspadskaya Coal Company.
The commodity was brought forward with delivery basis of FCA Tomusinsk and Mezhdurechensk, both in Russia's Kemerovo region.
According to the release from St. Petersburg international raw material and commodity exchange, five lots of GZh grade coking coal, totaling 24,150 mt, were put up at the auction by Raspadskaya at an average price of Ruble 4,500/mt (approx. $154/mt), including VAT, and two lots of coking coal totaling 9,522 mt were sold by Mechel at the average price of Ruble 5,000/mt (approx. $171/mt) including VAT.
Steel mills and coking plants are expected to become the main coking coal concentrate consumers.
"Mechel highly appreciates the importance of the start of the exchange auctions for coking coal concentrate. Better availability of pricing information is an effective tool for state antitrust control. Implementation of the commodity exchange mechanism for competitive pricing of raw materials is one more step in developing the market economy in Russia," reads Mechel's statement.
$1 = Ruble 29.17