Anthracite prices in China's main production regions posted moderate drops during the previous week as the downstream users showed limited demand with abundant stockpiles.

Anthracite miners mostly maintained high capacity utilization rates and ensured sufficient supply to the market, yet failure rate of online auctions increased and coal inventories held by miners elevated.

After finishing periodical restocking, the civil sector was only seen with sporadic demand.

In the meantime, declined capacity utilization at steel mills indicated lower buying strength for anthracite and promoted them purchasing on a need-to basis only.

Prevailing offers for 6,800 Kcal/kg NAR 0.5%-sulfur small-lump anthracite in Jincheng of Shanxi were at 1,200-1,280 yuan/t free-on-rail basis with VAT, down 25 yuan/t week on week; and the 0.2%-sulfur 6,000 Kcal/kg NAR slack anthracite coal were at 810-880 yuan/t, ex-washplant basis with VAT.

As of December 11, Fenwei assessed the price of 7,000 Kcal/kg NAR mid-lump anthracite with 0.5% sulfur in Jincheng at 1,350 yuan/t, ex-washplant basis with VAT, unchanged from a week ago.

The price of 7,000 Kcal/kg NAR washed small lump anthracite (S 0.5%) in Jincheng was also flat at 1,300 yuan/t, ex-washplant with VAT, and that of 6,000 Kcal/kg NAR anthracite slack with 0.5% sulfur in Jincheng remained unchanged at 950 yuan/t, ex-washplant with VAT.