Kirill Chernovol: "Coking coal exports from Russia to India will grow, but it will not raise global prices"

"India’s plans to ramp up coal imports are driven by plans to increase capacity in the steel industry. Most of the coking coal mined in Russia is already exported to India. Importers are simply not interested in other types of coal. Therefore, although exports of coking coal from Russia to India are likely to grow, in the long term neither the total volume of coal exports nor the global coal price will increase," the expert said.

According to Kirill Chernovol, India is actively increasing stainless steel production, planning to increase it to 9.3–9.5 million tons in 2030 and to 19–20 million tons in 2047. This growth, as the analyst emphasized, forms a high demand for coking coal, necessary for the production of steel with a minimum content of impurities.

"At the same time, it should be understood that India is one of the world leaders in coal production, in 2022, the country ranked third in the world in terms of production, but it is coking coal — it is, according to the Ministry of Coal Industry of India, only about 6.7% of the coal produced in the country (in 2023–2024 coking coal production was about 66.6 million tons, non-coking — 930.6 million tons)", — the expert stressed.