DAILY: China's met coke prices set to climb higher

After a week-long price wrangle, some steelmakers in North China's Hebei province and Tianjin municipality on November 13 agreed to lift their purchasing prices for metallurgical coke by Yuan 50-55/tonne (7-7.7/t), effective on Saturday. This marks coke producers' fourth victory in price negotiations with mills since early October.

Although steelmakers attempted to rein in costs in feed coke at first, the low stockpiles at some mills had underscored their firm restocking demand and forced them to accept this round of price hikes, according to a Shanxi-based analyst. Mysteel's survey of 247 blast-furnace mills nationwide found that their average