Coking coal price to stabilise at $140-150 per tonne: Official

Kolkata, March 28 (IANS) The price of coking coal will stabilise between $140-150 per tonne in the next 3-5 years, an official said here on Tuesday.

"My prediction is coking coal price will stabilise between $140-150 per tonne of coking coal in the coming 3-5 years," Steel Authority of India (SAIL) Executive Director (Collieries division) S.K. Basak said here.

He said international coking coal price was at peak at $308.8 a tonne in 2016 and it now cooled to $151 a tonne. In the last month, the coking coal price slightly rose to $160 per tonne due to the Chinese ban on coal import from North Korea. The steel producer is looking forward to acquisition of new coal blocks, he said at an event organised by Bharat Chamber of Commerce.

Given the scarcity of indigenous coking coal availability, the imports will continue unless ash content is reduced to 13 per cent, Basak said.

"The government is talking about supplying coking coal with 13 per cent ash content while we were habituated with 18 per cent ash content of coal for the last 40 years. Imports will continue unless, ash content is reduced to 13 per cent," he said.

He said about 20 years back, Coal India was providing 10 million tonnes of coking coal to the steel sector while the supply came down to just over 7 million tonnes at the beginning of the 21st century.

"The supply is now hovering at 2.1 million tonnes. This is mainly because in stead of beneficiation, we are diverting the costly coking coal to power sector," he added.

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