Indian steel mills struggle to find met coke at reasonable prices

Indian steel producers have continued to face challenges finding competitively-priced offers of metallurgical coke in the domestic market. Specifically, having concerns over tight supply of coking coal in the domestic market and a potential rise in prices, this week local met coke producers in India have continued to push their offer prices up further. “Coke producers have fears that they might book coking coal at high prices now (shipments of which will arrive in 30-45 days in the best case), but then the price for coke could fall in the future and they’ll have to bear huge losses,” an Indian trader commented. “The situation is just hitting the roof in India. I have been trying to book coke for the past two to three days, but sellers are not ready to take bulk orders now. Because of low coking coal supply, coke ovens have reduced their capacity to 60-70 percent. The conditions are tremendously unfavorable for buyers,” an Indian coke buyer told.

On balance, following a significant increase in offers to INR 50,000/mt ($669/mt) ex-works levels at the beginning of this week, by the end of the week some suppliers in the eastern regions of India have started voicing met coke prices at INR 51,000/mt ($682/mt) ex-works levels. “Demand is actually less at these levels, but that does not stop met coke producers,” an Indian trader stated. In particular, an Indian steel producer has been inviting bids for procurement of 20,000 mt  BF grade met coke this week, extending the deadline of a tender due to the absence of any affordable prices.

By the end of the current week, SteelOrbis has learned of ex-Indonesia met coke (CSR 62-64) booking, March laycan into India at $635-640/mt CFR. “Taking into account the current developments, demand for imported coke (whichever is cheaper) is certainly rising but still buyers are not able to make a call at these prices,” a major international trader commented.