A deal for 40,000 mt of mid-volatile premium hard coking coal (PHCC) from Australia was signed at $238/mt FOB yesterday, March 24, pushing up the reference price by $12/mt from the previous $226/mt FOB seen in bids since late last week. This was a sale to a trader for May shipment for the Indian market. But Indian mills have been resisting the uptrend. Costs for them have already increased a lot and rising freight rates have been adding pressure. Early this week, an offer for similar grade was at $252/mt FOB, but bids were not above $225-226/mt FOB.
But market sources believe that further rises are unlikely, at least in the near future, since, with subdued demand from India, there is still firm availability of coking coal from Australia and freight rates are stabilizing after the previous surge.
An offer for hard coking coal was at $213/mt FOB, but the interest among buyers has remained low. Even though tradable levels in China have improved, for hard coking coal buyers are not ready to pay above $190/mt FOB. This week, the tradable level for premium hard coking coal in China has increased by $12/mt, reaching $225/mt CFR, still far from Australian offers. This happened amid rises seen in the local market in China, with local coking coal prices up RMB 120/mt ($17/mt) over the past week.
