Indian state ports’ coking coal imports rise in July

Indian coking coal imports moving through 12 key state-controlled ports during April-July were up by 16.2pc compared with the previous year, boosted by continued pre-monsoon season restocking.

The total volume of coking coal handled by the ports in the first four months of the 2019-20 fiscal year was 20.2mn t, up from 17.4mn t for the same period a year earlier, preliminary data from the Indian Ports Association (IPA) show.

The IPA data do not break out the data by month or include a breakdown of origin countries. Only nine of the 12 ports covered by the IPA data received coking coal shipments during April-July.

The port of Kolkata handled the largest share of coking coal imports during the period at 6.82mn t, up by 21pc. The total included 5.92mn t received at Haldia and 899,000t arriving at the Kolkata Dock System.

Coking coal imports at Paradip were at 4.2mn t during April-July but this was down by 6.93pc from the same period last year. Imports at the port of Vizag increased by 54pc to 3.1mn t, while the volumes at the port of Mormugao in the state of Goa also rose by 59.1pc to 2.74mn t.

Imports at Chidambaranar, Tamil Nadu were 1.64mn t, while volumes at Mumbai and New Mangalore were 666,000t and 378,000t respectively.

The port of Ennore received 352,000t of coking coal, while the port of Deendayal imported 306,000t. But the ports of Chennai, Cochin and Jawaharla Nehru did not take any coking coal imports during this period.