September 21: After falling continuously from the beginning of July, the spot prices of coking coal appears to have stabilised at around $140 per ton fob Australia, industry source said.
"However, even at this level, buyers are difficult to find as steel demand in major markets like China and India is not growing as per expectation," an official of a leading Indian low ash metallurgical (lam) coke maker said.
"China's growth story has started showing signs of weakness and if there is no improvement in the situation in coming few days, we expect coking coal prices to fall further," he added.
However, traders of coking coal believe that coking coal prices may not fall further in coming days after having fallen by about 38% from a high of around $226 per ton fob at the beginning of July to $140 per ton as on September 20 as miners would prefer shutdown instead of incurring operating losses.
"Some of the leading miners in Australia have already announced production cuts on various grounds, including losses, and the situation is not that encouraging in the US and Canada, the other two suppliers of coking coal, and this might lead as overall reduced availability of coking coal that will put a break on fall in prices," a trader said.
Source: ISMW
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