Coal news and updates

Saurashtra Fuels eye smaller countries for met coke export

June 25: Saurashtra Fuels Ltd, India’s largest manufacturer of metallurgical coke on merchant basis, is eyeing to export its product by containers to countries and companies with small demand for the material, a company official said.

“We are right now targeting small demands from countries like Malaysia, Sri Lanka and New Zealand. The objective is to move material to countries which are slightly away from China,” the official said.

“New Zealand is a country with small demand of around 6000 tons for met coke. So we are planning to send our material to that country by containers,” the official added.

“We had been exporting met coke to Pakistan by containers, except for one cargo recently by a small vessel to Pakistan Steel, and focus will be to export more to Pakistan,” he said.

Saurashtra Fuels also recently exported via Tuticorin port a small cargo of met coke through containers to a buyer in Kuala Lumpur besides supplying a 16000 tons cargo to JSW Ispat at its Dolvi plant through a small vessel which was loaded from Kandla port.

Citing a report, the official said that by 2016 the cost of production of met coke in China is likely to rise by around $100 per ton because of increase in labour charges and other statutory charges.

“If that happens, then Indian coke will be competitive in the world. Already, the import of Russian coke to India has gone down because of increase in its cost of production. No material is coming from Russia as manufacturing cost has gone up due to rise in labour coke,” the official said.

On the domestic front, the official expects that with significant fall in production of met coke in Dhanbad area due to reduced supply of quality coal from Bharat Coking Coal Ltd (BCCL) and stoppage of production by small cookeries in Assam due to disturbances in supply of Meghalaya coal.

In April, a Green Tribunal of High Court had imposed a ban on mining and transportation of coal in Meghalaya.

Recently, the Green Tribunal has allowed transportation of already mined coal lying at pit head, but it is yet to decide on lifting the ban on mining of coal in Meghalaya, according to information available with ICMW.

“If BCCL does not give quality coal to coke makers in Dhanbad and the ban on mining of coal in Meghalaya is not lifted, it is quite natural that even the steel makers in Eastern India will start buying met coke from plants located on Western coast of the country and this augurs well for Saurashtra Fuels,” the official felt.