India officially levies AD duties on met coke imports from 6 countries

India has imposed anti-dumping duties of $60.87-$130.66/tonne on imports of low-ash metallurgical coke from China and five other countries, Mysteel Global has learned. The levies are expected to remain in place for half a year, pending a further investigation into the import trade, according to government documents.

Responding to a request made in November by India's Ministry of Commerce & Industry (MCI) that anti-dumping duties be imposed, the country's Department of Revenue, under the Ministry of Finance, on December 31 decided to impose duties on low-ash met coke imports from China, Australia, Colombia, Indonesia, Japan and Russia for six months till the end of June.

The duties apply to low-ash met coke with an ash content below 18%, according to the document. Materials used for ferroalloy manufacturing, with phosphorus content up to 0.03% and particle size up to 30 mm (with a 5% tolerance), are excluded from the levies.

Following the anti-dumping duties, New Delhi cancelled the quantitative restrictions that it had enforced throughout 2025. In January last year, India introduced country-wise quotas that capped the country's total low-ash met coke imports at 713,583 tonnes per quarter, according to MetalsBuy, a commodity trading platform in India.

"The rollback of [quantitative] restrictions suggests the government has acknowledged the operational realities of steel production," MetalsBuy commented. Low-ash met coke is a critical input that accounts for 35-40% of Indian steelmakers' overall production costs, according to the trading portal. The volume controls had lifted low-ash met coke prices in India and impacted the efficiency of blast furnaces as mills were forced to substitute higher-ash coke in the melts when low-ash became scarce, it noted.

Some market analysts consider the policy adjustment positive for coke exporters from non-targeted countries, while MetalsBuy also predicts that India's import volumes of coke may recover modestly in the near term, "particularly from Southeast Asia and Latin America".

Over January-October last year, India's cumulative coke imports reached 3.26 million tonnes, down 18.6% from the same period the previous year, according to MCI data.

Written by Adrian Zhou, zhouwenhaoa@mysteel.com

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