Coking coal imports rise at Indian state ports

Indian coking coal imports moving through 12 key state-controlled ports rose by 13.3pc during April-January compared with the same period the previous year as production rates at steel mills remained elevated.

The total volume of coking coal handled by the ports in the first 10 months of the 2018-19 fiscal year was 47.82mn t, up from 42.2mn t for the same period a year earlier, preliminary data from the Indian Ports Association (IPA) show.

The IPA data do not include a breakdown of which countries exported coking coal to India. Only nine of the 12 ports covered by the IPA data received coking coal shipments during April-January.

Kolkata handled the largest share of coking coal imports during the period at 16.3mn t. This included 13.91mn received at Haldia and 2.4mn t arriving at the Kolkata dock system.

Coking coal imports at Paradip and Vizag during April-January were 10.58mn t and 5.33mn t respectively.

The port of Mormugao in Goa state received 5.21mn t of coking coal during the 10-month period, a sharp drop from 8.1mn t the previous year. Imports at Chidambaranar, Tamil Nadu were 3.89mn t, while volumes at Mumbai and New Mangalore were 3.41mn t and 1.32mn t respectively.

The port of Ennore received 1.03mn t of coking coal, while the port Deendayal imported 753,000t. But the ports of Chennai, Cochin and Jawaharla Nehru did not take any coking coal imports during April-January.