DAILY: China's met coke market firm on price hike expectations

China's metallurgical coke market stayed largely stable on August 19, but bullish sentiment strengthened amid tighter supply, higher coking coal costs, and growing expectations of coke price hikes. Coke prices are expected to keep an upward bias in the short term, with steelmakers' margins and hot metal output remaining key to the outlook.

Mysteel Coke Index (MCI) CDQ, which tracks China's national dry-quenched quasi-first-grade met coke prices, held flat from the previous session at Yuan 1,838.7/tonne ($272.7/t) on Wednesday, while the MCI CWQ for wet-quenched quasi-first-grade met coke also stay unchanged at Yuan 1,695/t. Optimistic sentiment grew among market players yesterday, with most