India ramps up met coal imports in July

India ramped up imports of coking coal, pulverised coal injection (PCI) and metallurgical coke in July as steelmakers sought feedstocks ahead of the end of the country's monsoon season in September.

Coking coal imports in July rose by 1.8pc from the previous month to 3.49mn t, according to data from e-commerce company Mjunction. Australia supplied almost three quarters of total imports with 2.61mn t, up by 10.8pc from June.

India imported 276,038t of US coking coal in July, up by 0.9pc from June, while imports from Canada fell by 47.5pc over the period to 304,990t. Coking coal imports from Mozambique doubled to 212,108t, while India did not receive any volumes from Indonesia in July after taking 65,876t of coking coal from the country in June.

India's PCI imports climbed by 11.4pc from June to 625,452t in July. Deliveries from Australia rose by 11.1pc over the period to 436,499t, while imports from Russia increased by 12.1pc to 188,953t.

Imports of met coke hit 407,232t in July, an increase of 23.3pc from June. Top supplier China shipped 238,504t in July, up by 56.9pc, while deliveries from Australia fell by 55.7pc to 24,951t.

July's imports of met coke also included 65,324t from Poland, 39,530t from Colombia, 7,500t from Japan and 6,300t from Egypt.