Global production of crude steel reached a new all-time high of 1,661m tonnes in 2014, said German Coal Importer Association, in its latest presentation released recentenly. According to VDKi, the modest increase of 1.2% or 19m tonnes occurred mainly in Asia (+ 1.4%) and in the Middle East (+ 7.7%). Production was not increased in Europe or North America either, while it was reduced in Russia, South America and Australia. The pig iron production that is so significant for coking coal, PCI coal and coke consumption increased by only 13m tonnes, or 1%, to 1.18bn tonnes.
German Coal Importer Association further noted that, the supplier structure on the seaborne coking coal world market, which in 2014 grew by 30m tonnes to a total of 309m tonnes, has not changed significantly. While Australia's market share has increased in absolute terms by 15m tonnes, in relative terms it has now fallen by one percentage point to 60%. The USA and Canada, by way of contrast, lost market shares and now jointly account for 27% of the market. Russia managed to double its share to 10%.
“ Worldwide coke production is stagnating at around 682m tonnes. The world coke market, on the other hand, is only a very small market with 19m tonnes and a share of 2.8% in worldwide coke production”, German Coal Importer Association.
Prices
Commenting on prices of coking coal, VDKi noted that, the downward trend in coking coal prices persisted in 2014. As a result of low growth in demand, accompanied by a significant increase in supply and the insufficient decommissioning of mines around the world, both coking coal and coke prices decreased in 2014. While prices of between 127 and 132 US$/t were still being paid for coking coal at the beginning of 2014, this price fell to below 113 US$/t by mid-2014 and remained steady there within a fluctuation range of 110-113 US$/t until the end of 2014. Any belief that the market had bottomed out, however, was crushed at the beginning of 2015, when prices again came under pressure and fell to 100-102 US$/t up until March. The main reason for this is the reduced production of iron and steel around the world.
The Association further said that, the price for a tonne of coke FOB China fell along with the coking coal prices and amounted to some 240 US$/t at the beginning of 2014. In the further course of the first half-year of 2014 the price was fluctuating between 195 US$/t and 237 US$/t and then falling continuously again in the second half of 2014 until it reached 178 US$/t.
German Coal Importer Association also said that, the Germany imported 11.8m tonnes of coking coal in 2014, 15% more than in 2013 (10.2m tonnes). The main supplier countries for Germany are Australia, the USA and Canada.
Freight rates
Association also analysed on trend of freight in 2014 and commented that, this is another market characterised by overcapacities and low prices. In 2014, the Baltic Dry Index (BDI), which is calculated from the indices of the four ship groups Capesize, Panamax, Supramax and Handysize, again surrendered the slight recovery that it had made in 2013 with 1,206 points. By April last year, the BDI had fallen to below 1,000 points and in the second half of the year it reached its all-time low of 723 points.
The reasons for the persistent weakness of the freight market are overcapacities in freight space without any commensurate increases in demand, and a shift of ore and coal imports to the Pacific (in other words Australia) instead of the Atlantic (in other words Brazil for iron ore, the USA and Canada for coking coal) with correspondingly shorter routes. Aside from divergences at short notice caused by seasonal factors, the weekly freight rates for the route Colombia - ARA fluctuated within a range from 6-14 US$/t.
source: http://coalspot.com