Indian steelmaker Tata Steel for the first time has started ‘test imports’ of coking coal from Russia, a company official said on Monday, November 23.
“We have imported some coking coal from Russia. The east coast of Russia is a good source for coking coal. Our test sourcing has been positive,” Tata Steel managing director T V Narendran said.
The import by Tata Steel was in response to the Indian Ministry of Steel’s advice to domestic steel producers to attempt to increase imports of Russian coking coal and reduce their dependence on Australian coking coal.
“We support the government’s initiative to look at Russia as a source for coking coal. It is a good option for us, otherwise we are over-dependent on Australia,” Narendran said. “For many reasons, Russia is a good option for us. Australia also often has cyclone and other weather issues and hence we imported and tried out some Russian material,” he added.
