Public sector firms Steel Authority of India (SAIL) and Rashtriya Ispat Nigam (RINL) have announced that they have arrived at the current financial year’s long-term prices of coking coal. The coking coal prices have been fixed at $115-125 per tonne after discussing the same with global suppliers.
These prices are almost 60% cheaper from the previous fiscal’s level of $292-300 a tonne. Earlier, the contract was scheduled to be effective from July 1 but now it has been rescheduled to come into effect from April 1. The difference for the three months i.e. April, May and June will be carried forward to the coming financial years.
SAIL is expected to import around 11 million tonne of coking coal during the current fiscal against the last year’s figure of 10.5 million tonne. RINL may import close to 3 million tonne this fiscal.
The lower coking coal prices are likely to help these companies to reduce their cost of production.
The contract was concluded keeping the benchmark rate of $129 a tonne offered to steel companies from Japan by the global suppliers of coking coal.