Prices for ex-Australia premium hard coking coal (PHCC) have improved a little from the previous level in rare deals done by traders amid hopes for revived trading activity by Indian mills for December laycan materials. At the same time, support from Chinese buyers, seen in the past weeks, has faded away and import deals have been done at lower levels.
A deal for 75,000 mt of branded mid-volatile PHCC has been heard at $196/mt FOB for December laycan on GlobalCoal in the middle of this week, up by $1/mt from the previous reference price, while an offer for a smaller volume of 35,000 mt of mid-volatile Goonyella material was placed at $199/mt FOB the same day. In addition, low-volatile PHCC was offered at $200/mt FOB and $201/mt FOB this week, with no interest seen as bids have been almost $10/mt lower.
Indian end-users have been not so active so far, but traders have been preparing for demand to revive by the end of the month. The tradable level in the Indian market for late November-early December shipment is assessed at not below $208-209/mt CFR.
In addition, steel mills will be mainly focused on imports of coking coal with restrictions on coke imports. Late last week, India proposed definitive antidumping (AD) duties on imports of low ash metallurgical coke: duty of $73.5/mt on imports from Australia, duty of $130/mt for China, $120/mt for Columbia, $83/mt for Indonesia, $61/mt for Japan and $85/mt for Russia.
At the same time, ex-Australia 75,000 mt of mid-volatile Goonyella PHCC was traded in China at $205/mt CFR for end of November-early December shipment. Market sources said that the tradable level for PHCC in China slipped from the peak $211/mt CFR to $204-206/mt CFR.