Prices for ex-Australia premium hard coking coal (PHCC) have increased up in the latest deal, but in general it is not signaling about improvements in the market as supply is still higher than demand. A contract for 75,000 mt of mid-volatile Goonyella PHCC was done at $188/mt FOB for end-October laycan, up by $1/mt from a deal done last week for the same grade and up by $2/mt compared to offers at GlobalCoal last week. Market sources said that the deal was done in direct negotiations between a miner and a trader, as offers seen at above $190/mt FOB at GlobalCoal were far from the tradable levels.
Demand in Indian market is awaited to rebound by late September-early October, but since traders have already had sufficient stocks and bought some cargoes for delivery in November, this is unlikely to support prices for PHCC much in the near future. The latest offers by traders are at $205-206/mt CFR, slightly above $202-204/mt CFR last week and a previous deal at $201.25/mt CFR for September laycan.
Also, sentiments in the Chinese market have been rather negative. This week, local coke plants accepted the first round of price cuts, and the second one has already been proposed. The tradable level for import PHCC in China has been slightly lower too - $185-187/mt CFR versus $185-200/mt CFR last week.