Commodity Market Report
Metallurgical coal market short-term outlook September 2021
Report summary
The usual superlatives seem redundant when describing current metallurgical coal prices. A US$160/t rise in Australian PLV prices in a month speaks for itself. Spot prices - above US$400/t - are now higher than they have ever been, beyond even the peaks of 2008, 2011 and 2016. Met coal has been caught up in a unique global environment. Supply chains everywhere are struggling to keep up with a continued post-pandemic surge in demand. Making it worse for met coal is the critical supply shortage in China, and tight supply elsewhere. Our analysis of the economic outlook, and demand and supply drivers, suggest a moderating price trend is most likely. The global supply chain crisis will ameliorate next year, and supply will improve too. But how quickly can things change, and where will price support levels lie?
Table of contents
- Outlook:
- Risks
- China: property risk and power shortages put pressure on China’s economic engine
- India: strong momentum in Indian steel production continues to drive metallurgical coal demand
- Japan: stranded cargoes in China finding a new home
- Southeast Asia: countries to benefit from relaxed Covid-19 restrictions and China’s production cuts on upstream and downstream industries
- Australia: Queensland met coal throughput marginally up in August
- Australia: delays, restarts and improvements
- Russia: improvement expected with railways, but will remain constrained
Tables and charts
This report includes 11 images and tables including:
- Key prices - history & quarterly forecasts (US$/t nominal)
- China's "three red lines" policy
- China housing completion
- Urbanisation in China
- Indian coke imports and exports
- Indian metallurgical coal imports
- Global and Chinese crude steel production (Mt)
- Global and Chinese blast furnace hot metal production (Mt)
- Crude steel production - ex-China producers (Mt)
- Blast furnace hot metal production - ex-China producers (Mt)
- Queensland ports: Metallurgical coal exports (Mt per month)
What's included
This report contains:
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