5 key takeaways from Singapore Coking Coal Conference 2025

Tariff-related concerns, the decarbonization of the industry and China's consumption were just among the hottest topics at the Singapore Coking Coal Conference 2025, a two-day component of the Singapore International Ferrous Week organized by SGX Commodities. Here are five key takeaways from the event that ran May 29-30, compiled by S&P Global Commodity Insights.

1. Tariffs and trade

US tariffs took the spotlight in the early part of the conference, which S&P Global Ratings Asia-Pacific Chief Economist Louis Kuijs said will lower growth both in the US and abroad while raising US inflation.

"China, of course, has been one of the most obvious or the most obvious targets of US trade policy," Kuijs said. "We expect that when everything is said and done... China will still face significant tariffs in the US that will weigh on exports, weigh on investment, [and] weigh on growth overall."

Kuijs pointed out that while the US tariffs will hit global economies, the impact will not stall them.

"Export-dependent economies will likely be affected the most, while the least affected are more domestic-oriented economies such as India, the Philippines and Indonesia," he said.

The past six months have been "an incredibly difficult economic environment" due to "ever-escalating burden from the regulatory environment," said Tim Peirce, chief commercial officer of M Resources.

Where spot prices are concerned, "We see the US flattening a little bit in the second half [of 2025]," Paul Bartholomew, a lead analyst at Commodity Insights, said.

Since the year started, Platts-assessed US HRC ex-works Indiana prices rose 38% to $950/st on March 19, falling 11.5% again to reach $840/st on June 3. Platts is part of Commodity Insights.

2. Demand

Conference participants said that China and India, the world's number one and two steelmakers, are seeing their appetites grow for coking coal amid their burgeoning steel industries.

A "big coking coal story there" in India, Bartholomew said, as India is "building a lot of blast furnaces that are really largely focused on flat steel, high-quality products."

Amid rising steel production, more than 100 million mt of new annual hard coking coal production capacity is required by 2050, said Simon Nicholas, lead energy finance analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.

However, with not much fresh supply in the pipeline, coking coal exports from Australia and the US could slow in 2025, according to Sylvia Cao, a principal analyst at Commodity Insights.

Meanwhile, India is set to diversify its coking coal supplies to support its steel expansion, Cao said.

As the world's leading coking coal producers deliberate on their plans, Mongolia is unlikely to be one of India's main suppliers, said Battsengel Gotov, executive director and group CEO of the Mongolian Mining Corp. (MMC).

"It's not going to happen," Gotov said, recounting a 2012 moment in which MMC exported two cargoes to Indian producers to get a "sense" of exporting coking coal to overseas markets. And after that, we decided, obviously, this is not worth it," he said.

Mongolia exported some coal cargoes to India in 2012, but a 5,000-km coal haulage to the Far Eastern Russian port Nakhoda, and then shipping it on a vessel to India, proved logistically infeasible for suppliers.

3. Decarbonization

As major steelmakers work toward becoming zero-carbon emitters, Dr. Lars Schernikau, energy economist and founder of trading firm HMS Bergbau AG, said the "So-called green steel... will be significantly more expensive...almost like a separate product category, right? Who's going to pay for it?"

Schernikau felt the steel industry needs a lot of education "about what green means or it doesn't mean, what the costs are, what the investments are involved."

Nevertheless, "globally, 93% of new steel capacity announced in 2024 will be EAF [electric arc furnace]-based, showing a clear shift toward low-carbon routes," Gilberto Cardoso, founder and CEO of Tarraco Commodities, said.

As EAFs depend on direct reduced iron and ferrous scrap, carbon capture and storage is unlikely to play a major role in blast furnace decarbonization, Nicholas said.

About 96 million mt of low-carbon steel capacity projects are forecast for 2030 based on the DRI route compared with one for CCS combined with the coal-based BF-BOF (blast furnace-basic oxygen furnace) route, Nicholas said, citing data from Agora Industry.

Citing Commodity Insights data, Cao said that rising carbon costs and regulatory pressure in the EU are "incentivizing" steelmakers' shift to lower-carbon steel production, noting that 21 out of 25 BF-BOF steel mills are planning to transition to EAFs and DRI units.

"There's been a lot of government subsidies put forward potentially to try and encourage it, but there's just not a lot of traction for it in Australia," Stuart Bocking, CEO of Coal Australia, said.

4. Protectionism

China exports steel to more than 200 countries, but antidumping and safeguard duties as well as tariffs are "making it harder," Bartholomew said, adding that China's finished steel exports could fall to 91 million mt in 2025.

Meanwhile, major suppliers of low-ash metallurgical coke face significant reductions in their access to the India market, said Jitendra Nanda, a managing partner at Balta SA. India imposed a quantitative restriction on imports of low-ash metallurgical coke from Jan. 1 to June 30.

"After the restrictions, we expect to see significant reductions in trade flows," Nanda said. "Polish exports may focus more on European markets, while Indonesian and Chinese exports could target Southeast Asia and other regions like Europe to compensate for reduced Indian market access."

5. China watch

China's economic outlook remained a factor as it increased its imports of coking coal to 122 million mt in 2024 from 103 million mt in 2023, data cited by the MMC showed. The data showed that Mongolia was the leading supplier to China in 2024, accounting for 46% of the inflows, followed by Russia with 25% and the US with 9%.

Also in China, "infrastructure is overtaking property construction in terms of steel consumption," according to Bartholomew. Chinese manufacturing has been the strongest performer by sector, but tariff uncertainty is "starting to bite."

Property construction consumption of steel in China is on track to fall 150 million mt over five years, with 2021 as the starting year, Commodity Insights data showed.

Amid the bearish factors, China's GDP growth is expected will be significantly below the government's 5% target in 2025 and 2026, Kuijs said.

Will the factors result in government-mandated steel production cuts?

"We're not expecting to see that, given the kind of slightly slowing economy," Bartholomew said. Nonetheless, "the production levels are really being directed by the mills themselves in response to market conditions," he said.