June 13, 2019 - India lifted coking coal imports to their highest level in more than a year as consolidation and higher capacity in the country's steel industry boosted demand.

India imported 4.58mn t of coking coal in April, up by 35.5pc from a year earlier and an increase of 24.1pc from the previous month, according to data from e-commerce company Mjunction.

Australia was the largest supplier with 3.32mn t in April, up by 29.3pc from March, while imports from Canada doubled from the previous month to 462,933t.

Indian imports of US coking coal fell by 32.5pc from a month earlier to 318,065t, while shipments from Mozambique were down by 12.1pc to 202,985t. Indian also took 158,740t of coking coal from Russia and 125,400t from Indonesia.

The Argus premium hard coking coal index averaged $203.26/t fob Australia in April, down from $210.90/t in March.

India imported 955,925t of pulverised coal injection (PCI) feedstocks in April, down by 15.7pc from March but an increase of 43.3pc from the same month last year.

Australia was the largest PCI exporter to India in April with 537,087t, down by 33.6pc from March. But Russia was closing in behind with a month-on-month increase of 25.6pc to 376,987t.

Indian imports of metallurgical coke were 387,614t in April, up by 60.7pc from the previous year and an increase of 73pc from March. The largest met coke suppliers to India were China with 118,421t, Poland with 88,067t, Japan with 78,610t, Russia with 70,132t and Colombia with 15,058t. 

Indian Coking Coal Imports mn t