Thermal coal

Production area Mine-mouth thermal coal market was held steady. Long-haul coal trucks were few at mining areas due to snowfall. Except for a few mines that maintained normal short-distance coal delivery to neighboring rail stations, most miners reported hurdles in coal dispatches. Some mines even encountered storage constraints, forcing them to cut or even suspend production. The overall transactions were bleak.

Northern port The portside sentiment weakened. Offer prices slightly softened from traders that were more inclined to sell stocks. But transactions remained slack due to tepid demand from downstream users. The port-side coal stocks hovered at high levels and demand from power plants still lacked strength. Some participants expected coal consumption at power plants to rebound along with recent cold waves. This, together with tightened supply from production areas, may continue to keep coal prices range-bound in the short term.

Import market The imported coal market saw continued steadiness. Foreign miners' offer prices were relatively firm. Domestic power utilities were comparatively active in floating tenders, and the awarded prices remained generally flat. The tender for 3,800 Kcal/kg NAR coal was awarded by Chinese utilities at 548-565 yuan/t and 4,500 Kcal/kg NAR coal at 700-730 yuan/t, DDP with VAT.

Coking coal

Coking coal price trend was divergent by grade, with backbone grades like primary coking coal staying relatively firm as the recent coal mine accident in Luliang of Shanxi tightened regional supply. Blending coking coal like meager lean coal was comparatively weak, with more auction failures heard. Some coking plants saw their feed coal inventory drop obviously amid the snowfall-affected logistics slowdown, and are expected to speed up replenishment this week.

Mongolian coal inflows slumped through China's Ganqimaodu border port due to snowfalls and fuel supply constraints. Despite this, trading activities remained weak at the border port amid limited improvement of buying appetite from downstream users. Mongolian 5# raw coking coal offer prices slightly dipped to 1,650-1,680 yuan/t, ex-stock with VAT.

Met coke

Although the fourth round of coke price hike received muted responses from steelmakers, the overall coke market remained supported to some extent. Most steel mills still saw their coke inventory fall amid unsmooth coke arrivals at the early stage of logistics improvement and some even agreed to pay higher logistics cost to increase deliveries. Coke stocks accumulated at production areas due to the snowfall and supply mildly rebounded amid eased environmental curbs on coke production. As coking coal prices gradually soften and steel products demand is expected to further decline, the positive prospective for coke price hike is fading gradually.