Indian coking coal imports surge in February

Indian coking coal imports surged in February as a temporary dip in prices prompted more steelmakers to build inventories.

India imported 4.17mn t of coking coal in February, up by 25.5pc on the month from January, according to data from e-commerce company Mjunction. Total coking coal imports in the first 11 months of the April 2018-March 2019 fiscal year were 37.51mn t.

Australia was the largest source of these volumes in February with 2.71mn t, up by 39.8pc from the previous month. Canada shipped 577,554t of coking coal to India in February, up by 19.9pc from January, while imports from the US in February fell by 33pc on the month to 323,805t.

Indian coking coal imports from Indonesia rose by 149.9pc on the month in February to 263,270t, while February imports from Mozambique climbed by 33.1pc from the previous month to 152,381t.

The Argus premium hard coking coal index averaged $198.05/t fob Australia in January, down from $224.78/t in December. A dry bulk carrier typically requires 20-25 days to travel from Queensland to east coast India.

India imported 729,194t of pulverised injection coal (PCI) in February, down by 22.6pc from January. Total PCI imports in the first 11 months of the 2018-19 fiscal year was 7.4mn t.

Australia was the largest PCI exporter to India in February with 729,194t, down by 26.3pc from the previous month. Indian imports from Russia fell by 2.8pc over the same period.

Indian imports of metallurgical coke in February dropped by 4.6pc on the month to 325,146t. Top met coke suppliers included China with 87148t, Poland with 69,172t, Russia with 57,301t, Colombia with 34,826t and Australia with 12,350t.