The abundance of low-priced import metallurgical coke offers in India, apart from numerous transactions done earlier, has continued to exert negative pressure on local producers. “During the last two to three weeks, the Indian market has been flooded with a lot of offers from China. Hence, prices have dropped drastically,” an Indian trader stated. Meanwhile, Indian steelmakers have no intention of losing the opportunity of getting even lower prices. This week, aggressive offers from Poland have been actively discussed in the market. As the information has been not confirmed by the time of publication, SteelOrbis believes that the levels mentioned by a few market sources have been bids rather than offers from the seller. In particular, while ex-Poland met coke (65% CSR) is said to be available at $415-420/mt CFR, some market sources said they have heard offers at $370/mt CFR. “This price is totally impossible, though all wish they got it,” an international trader commented. Lately, SteelOrbis has heard that a major Indian steelmaker is reported to have booked ex-Poland blast furnace (BF) met coke at $407/mt CFR.
Meanwhile, ex-Indonesia met coke (65% CSR) offers have been heard at $405-410/mt FOB this week, though some sellers are said to be ready to accept $390/mt FOB. With the freight from Indonesia to India being estimated at $27/mt, the CFR price might be around $417/mt CFR at the lowest, up around $15-17/mt from levels valid in early December. It is noteworthy that there is no import duty for met coke from Indonesia, while for Polish it is five percent.
In the meantime, local official prices of 25-90 mm of BF grade metallurgical coke in India have remained unchanged over the past week at INR 40,000/mt ($485/mt) ex-works, while tradable levels are much lower. Foundry coke of 80-100 mm is offered at INR 43,000/mt ($522/mt) ex-works.
As SteelOrbis reported earlier, on December 1 India’s state-run steel producer Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL) floated a global tender for procurement of 60,000 mt of low-ash metallurgical (LAM) coke. Nevertheless, the tender is still reported to be inconclusive due to the mismatch between offers and the levels desired by the mill. Besides, this week, Indian SAIL's IISCO steel plant in Burnpur, West Bengal, has floated a purchase tender for 15,000 mt of BF coke of 30-80 mm with five percent moisture and ash content not above 12.5 percent. The deadline for bids is December 20.
$1 = INR 82,34