Proposal to refine Fastmarkets’ coking coal index methodology

The proposal follows feedback from market participants that incorporating physical trading platform data will be of value to Fastmarkets’ coking coal indices because such data are transparent and underpin standard terms and conditions.

Fastmarkets proposes to directly incorporate data on physical trading platform GlobalCOAL in its coking coal index calculations. Transaction data received via the GlobalCOAL trading platform will be entered into both the buy-side sub-index and sell-side sub-index, reflecting the balanced nature of ownership of the platform.

The data entered will also be subject to weighting of tonnages, built-in outlier mechanisms and editorial judgement to ensure a representative index at the end of the calculation assessment period.

Fastmarkets’ current approach for the incorporation of physical trading platform data consigns responsibility to approved market sources to evaluate whether the activities are representative of the tradable level of the open and competitive market. Sources are asked to submit data to Fastmarkets where information on physical trading platform GlobalCOAL could be included in market sources’ submissions, which Fastmarkets then includes in its index.

The proposed change will be applied to the following coking coal indices:
MB-COA-0003 Premium hard coking coal, fob DBCT
MB-COA-0005 Premium hard coking coal, cfr Jingtang
MB-COA-0004 Hard coking coal, fob DBCT
MB-COA-0002 Hard coking coal, cfr Jingtang
MB-COA-0008 PCI low-vol, fob DBCT
MB-COA-0007 PCI low-vol, cfr Jingtang

The consultation period for these amendments starts from Monday December 5, 2022, and will end on Thursday January 5, 2023. The amendments will then take place, subject to market feedback, on Tuesday January 10, 2023.

To provide feedback on this proposal, or if you would like to provide price information by becoming a data submitter to these prices, please email pricing@fastmarkets.com. Please add the subject heading “FAO: Jane Fan/Paul Lim, re: Coking Coal Index Methodology.”

To see all of Fastmarkets’ pricing methodology and specification documents, go to: https://www.fastmarkets.com/about-us/methodology.