GACC: China's coking coal imports jump 27% YoY in October

Over the first ten months of the year, China's imports of coking coal from all sources totalled 99.25 million tonnes, higher by a marked 23% from the same period last year, the data showed.

The on-month decline in October also marked the third straight month of decline, partly as demand for steel from the country's major steel-consuming sector, the property market, stayed sluggish, Mysteel Global noted.

The situation appeared to improve somewhat after early November after China's top legislature rolled out more stimulus packages to revive the country's real estate market during the NPC Standing Committee meeting in Beijing, as reported. However, some time will be needed to see whether the measures give a spurt to materials demand and prices, analysts noted.

Moreover, Chinese steel mills and coke makers showed less interest in replenishing their import coking coal stocks last month, because many expect a slowdown in end-user steel demand after winter fully arrives.

Accordingly, China's intakes of coking coal from many countries including Mongolia, Canada and the US declined in October, Mysteel Global observed.

Coking coal shipments from Mongolia, China's top coking coal supplier, declined for the fourth consecutive month during October, dipping by another 4.6% from September to reach 3.93 million tonnes. The volume was still higher by 6.8% compared with the year-ago level however, the GACC data show.

Similarly, imports of coking coal from the US and Canada also saw declines last month. Coking coal shipments from the US to China slipped by 12.2% on month to 1.34 million tonnes, though these were higher by a large 111% compared with the same month last year.

Coking coal imports from Canada in October were less than half of those in September, slumping by 52.2% on month to only 412,965 tonnes. The shipments also plunged by 54.1% from a year earlier.

In contrast, shipments from Australia performed strongly in October, with Australia's share of China's total coking coal import market increasing to 13.4% compared with September's 10.2%. The total volume surged by 25.7% on month and by a huge 247.4% on year to stand at 1.33 million tonnes.

Seen as partly responsible for the surge was the fact that Australian coking coal prices dropped markedly in October, particularly in the latter half of the month, catching the attention of Chinese importers.

For example, by October 31 Mysteel's assessment for the price of Australian premium coking coal (ash<9%, VM<23%, sulfur<0.5%, Mt<10%, CSR>67%) sat at $215.4/wmt on CFR China basis without VAT, lower by $1.6/t from late September and $7.8/t from mid-October level.

In October too, coking coal cargoes from Russia rose by 3.3% from September and by a large 39.9% from October last year to top 2.56 million tonnes, the data showed.

Written by Winnie Han, hanyueran@mysteel.com

Edited by Russ McCulloch, russ.mcculloch@mysteel.com