Coking coal stocks pile up at Polish ports

Coking coal stocks at Polish ports have increased in recent weeks as vessels keep arriving while steelmakers try to delay onward rail shipments to their plants because of weak demand.

Coal stocks at the port of Gdansk — one of three hubs for seaborne imports of coking coal to Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia — have risen by about 150,000t in the past month to 750,000t, a Gdansk agent said. Another source estimated that around 60pc of this might be thermal coal, but acknowledged that there is a significant volume of coking coal at Polish ports that local end-users are in no rush to rail in.

Stocks are rising as end-users — mainly Slovakia's US Steel Kosice and ArcelorMittal's Polish plants — are reluctant to transport the coal from the port to their plants because of steel production cuts and lower European demand for merchant metallurgical coke.

But coking coal exports to Poland remain strong, despite rising stockpiles, bolstered by previously booked contract supply. Gdansk port expects to receive 350,000t of coking coal in July alone.

Nearby Gdynia port is due to receive less coking coal this month after a busy June. It received cargo from Mozambique earlier this month and is expecting another delivery from Colombia soon. Arrivals of coking coal bound for ArcelorMittal at Gdynia will pick up again next month, with cargo expected in early August, a port official told Argus.

Poland imported nearly 1.16mn t of coking coal in January-April, a 9pc increase on the year, statistics firm ARP data show. Roughly half of the coking coal imported in January-April was shipped from Australia.