Taipei Times
Date: Sep 26, 2016
By: Kuo Chia-erh / Staff reporter

The rising costs of coking coal might force China Steel Corp (CSC, 中鋼) to raise domestic product prices for December contracts despite it reducing prices for October and November contracts by 1.3 percent per tonne.

“Coking coal price would definitely affect China Steel’s production costs because the material is widely used in steelmaking processes,” CSC vice president Liu Jih-gang (劉季剛) said by telephone on Thursday.

The nation’s only integrated steelmaker is to announce its price adjustments for December shipments by the end of next month.

Iron ore and coking coal are key steelmaking ingredients. While prices of iron ore have remained weak this year, coking coal has surged in the past month because of a short supply of coal due to devastating floods in China’s major production regions.     [FULL  STORY]