Indian coking coal imports fall in March

India's coking coal imports fell in March as the country took delivery of fewer shipments from Canada and Indonesia.

India imported 3.69mn t of coking coal in March, down by 11.4pc from the previous month, according to data from e-commerce company Mjunction. Total imports in the 2018-19 financial year that ended on 31 March were 41.2mn t.

Australia was the largest supplier with 2.56mn t in March, which was down by 5.3pc from February, and 29.33mn t in 2018-19.

The US shipped 471,467t of coking coal to India in March, up by 45.6pc from February, while imports from Canada fell by 60pc over the period to 231,258t.

Coking coal imports from Mozambique rose by 51.6pc from February to 230,926t in March, while imports from Indonesia fell by 47.7pc over the period to 137,678t.

The Argus premium hard coking coal index averaged $210.90/t fob Australia in March, up from $207.77/t in February.

India imported 1.13mn t of pulverised injection coal (PCI) in March, up by 10.2pc from February. Total PCI imports in 2018-19 were 8.53mn t.

Australia was the largest PCI exporter to India in March with 809,152t, up by 11pc from the previous month. Imports from Russia fell by 0.1pc to 300,080t over the same period.

Indian imports of metallurgical coke dropped by 31.1pc month on month to 224,102t in March. The largest met coke suppliers to India were China with 93,060t, Poland with 64,795t, Colombia with 39,502t, Japan with 14,633t and Australia with 9,656t.