# Coking coal: Correlation Prices it moves with, and why Source page: https://www.materialinsights.org/energy/coking_coal/correlation/ Metallurgical coal is baked into coke for blast furnaces, so its price follows steel output in China, India and Japan. Seaborne supply comes mainly from Australia, making weather and mine problems there important. This site shows thermal coal as proxy. Proxy **World Bank Australian (Newcastle) coal price** US$/t · monthly, Jan 2006 to Sep 2026 There is no free public price for coking coal itself, so this tab uses the closest public series as a stand-in. Read the numbers as an indication, not as the price of this exact item. #### What its price moves with Selected link ##### Coking coal and Steel Monthly changes 0.17 little or none correlation 12-month changes 0.67 moderate correlation Last 5 years -0.13 monthly changes Lead or lag −1 mo Coking coal tends to lead by 1 month (r 0.26) Price function, Jan 2006 to Sep 2026 Coking coal ≈ 0.0539 × (Steel)^1.39 R² 0.66 On this fit, a 10% higher steel price goes with a 14.1% higher coking coal price over the long run. Units: US$/t and index, BLS base period. Chart: Coking coal and Steel prices rebased to 100 at Jan 2006, log scale Both prices rebased to 100 at Jan 2006, on a log scale so equal percentage moves look the same size. Chart: Coking coal price against Steel price, monthly, log scales, with fitted line Each dot is one month; paler dots are older (2006), darker dots recent (2026); the ringed dot is the latest month. The dashed line is the fitted price function. Both axes are logarithmic. Commodity [St Steel](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/steel/)Main use 0.17 Coke is the fuel and reducing agent in blast furnaces, so steel output and mill margins drive coking coal demand. Against the thermal coal proxy and the US steel index the tie is loose: monthly moves correlate at 0.17, yearly moves at 0.67, with coal leading by about a month. little or none co-movement month to month · 249 months Show charts Commodity [Fe Iron ore](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/iron_ore/)Co-input 0.27 Iron ore and coking coal are the two raw materials of blast-furnace steel, bought by the same mills. They share a demand driver but have separate supply shocks; with thermal coal standing in, monthly moves correlate at 0.27 and yearly moves at 0.37. weak co-movement month to month · 249 months Show charts Energy [Tc Thermal coal](https://www.materialinsights.org/energy/thermal_coal/)Proxy series Thermal coal is a lower grade from the same basins, ports and railways, and the two prices tend to rise and fall in the same energy cycles. No free coking coal series exists, so this site uses the thermal price as proxy and shows no statistics for the pair. Not enough overlapping price history to measure. Energy [CT Coal transport](https://www.materialinsights.org/energy/e_coal_transport/)Freight cost 0.21 Coking coal moves by rail to port and then by sea to mills in Asia, so freight is a large part of its delivered cost. The proxy price correlates with a US rail freight index at 0.22 monthly and 0.66 yearly, a shared fuel and demand cycle. weak co-movement month to month · 249 months Show charts Chemical [H2 Hydrogen](https://www.materialinsights.org/chemicals/hydrogen/)Substitute reductant 0.01 Direct reduction of iron with hydrogen or gas could replace coke in steelmaking, cutting coking coal demand over the long run. No price link exists yet: the hydrogen index is a US industrial gas price and shows no correlation with coal (0.01). little or none co-movement month to month · 208 months Show charts How to read these numbers **Correlation of monthly changes** (the number in the coloured pill) compares how much each price moved, month by month, since 2006 or the first month both series exist. It runs from −1 to +1: near +1 the two usually rise and fall in the same months, near 0 there is no link, and a negative number means they tend to move in opposite directions. Above 0.7 is strong, 0.4 to 0.7 moderate, 0.2 to 0.4 weak. **12-month changes** compare year-on-year moves, which shows whether two prices share the same cycles even when the month-to-month noise differs. **Price function** is a straight-line fit of the two prices on logarithmic scales: price ≈ k × (partner price)^β. β is how much this price moves, in per cent, for a 1% move in the partner over the whole period, and R² is the share of the variation the fit explains. Two prices that both drift up with inflation can fit well without any real link, so read it together with the monthly correlation. **Lead or lag** checks whether the monthly correlation is clearly higher when one price is shifted by 1 to 6 months. Correlation is not cause. The reasons on each card explain the economic link; the numbers show how strongly it has shown up in prices. Proxy series are US producer price indexes or related prices and can blur the real link. Data: World Bank Commodity Price Data (Pink Sheet), October 2026; US Bureau of Labor Statistics producer price indexes, IMF primary commodity prices and US EIA prices via FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, retrieved November 2026. Calculations by this site. ## Other sections - [Summary](https://www.materialinsights.org/energy/coking_coal/index.md) - [Energy overview](https://www.materialinsights.org/energy/coking_coal/energy/index.md) - [How energy resides](https://www.materialinsights.org/energy/coking_coal/resides/index.md) - [Abundance](https://www.materialinsights.org/energy/coking_coal/abundance/index.md) - [Fluctuation in time](https://www.materialinsights.org/energy/coking_coal/time/index.md) - [Across the Earth](https://www.materialinsights.org/energy/coking_coal/geography/index.md) - [Impact on nature](https://www.materialinsights.org/energy/coking_coal/nature/index.md) - [Overview](https://www.materialinsights.org/energy/coking_coal/overview/index.md) - [Extraction](https://www.materialinsights.org/energy/coking_coal/extraction/index.md) - [Production](https://www.materialinsights.org/energy/coking_coal/production/index.md) - [Stocks](https://www.materialinsights.org/energy/coking_coal/stocks/index.md) - [Cycles](https://www.materialinsights.org/energy/coking_coal/cycles/index.md) - [Trading](https://www.materialinsights.org/energy/coking_coal/trading/index.md) - [Movement](https://www.materialinsights.org/energy/coking_coal/movement/index.md) - [Criticality](https://www.materialinsights.org/energy/coking_coal/criticality/index.md) - [Characteristics](https://www.materialinsights.org/energy/coking_coal/characteristics/index.md) - [Emissions](https://www.materialinsights.org/energy/coking_coal/emissions/index.md) - [Relationships](https://www.materialinsights.org/energy/coking_coal/links/index.md)