BHP expects metallurgical coal prices to remain above long-term marginal costs with the support of Chinese policies and incremental demand from India and Southeast Asia despite volatility within and across the years.
The Chinese government's focus on pollution controls has continued to drive sales of its high-quality coking coal in the 2018 calendar year, the miner said on Tuesday February 19. The Fastmarkets MB fob Australia Premium Hard Coking Coal Index averaged $206.62 per tonne last year while the cfr China index averaged $205.20 per tonne.These compare with $187.28 per tonne fob Australia and $184.33 per tonne cfr China in 2017.Tighter balanceSeaborne coking coal supply remained tight in 2018 because coal throughput and vessel queues at the major ports in Queensland, Australia had not recovered as quickly...