Coking coal offer prices into Asia climb amid thin trading

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Steel First’s premium hard coking coal index for material sold on a cfr Jingtang basis was calculated at $124.38 per tonne on Monday, up by $1.79 from levels seen on Friday.

The premium hard coking coal index fob Australia’s DBCT port was calculated at $111.89 per tonne, up by $1.71 per tonne.

The cfr hard coking coal index stood at $113.35 per tonne on Monday, up by $1.63 per tonne. The fob value was $100.76 per tonne, unchanged from the day before.

“Miners don’t have much to offer now, because we have bought out large quantities of the April-laycan cargoes on the spot market,” a trader in eastern China said.

“We are not in a hurry to make offers either, as the cargoes have yet to be loaded,” he added.

Some traders have raised their offers, but buying interest remained thin, several other market participants said.

Goonyella was offered on the spot market at prices as high as $129 per tonne cfr China.

Traders which expected an improvement in steel sales over the next few weeks were keeping offer prices high, a trading source in Singapore said.

“The reduced number of offers also indicates that traders are cautious and dare not build up stockpiles,” another trader in Shandong province said.

The most-traded September coking coal futures contract on the Dalian Commodity Exchange closed at 881 yuan ($143) per tonne, up by 5 yuan ($1) per tonne compared with last Friday’s close of 876 yuan ($142) per tonne.

The most-traded September coke contract closed at 1,254 yuan ($203) per tonne, just 1 yuan ($0.16) per tonne higher than last Friday’s closing price.

The yuan prices are the equivalent of cfr prices plus 17% VAT and port charges of about 35 yuan ($6) per tonne.