Coking coal: Relationships
Every element and industry that Coking coal is linked to, and how. Each pair has its own card explaining the relationships between the two.
- Benzene: When coking coal is baked into coke for steelmaking, the oven gas carries crude benzol, which is recovered and refined into benzene. It is a by-product whose volume follows steel output, not benzene demand, and it matters most in China, where it supplied about a fifth of benzene in 2022. (researched)
- Steel: Blast furnace steel needs roughly 800 kg of coal per tonne, most of it as coke, so coking coal demand rises and falls with blast furnace output; India imports about 90 to 95% of its coking coal, with Australia the largest supplier. (researched)
- Thermal coal: Coking and thermal coal come from the same basins and sometimes the same mines, and the lower grades of metallurgical coal (semi-soft and PCI) can be sold either to steelmakers or to power stations. That makes the price gap between the two the thing to watch: it normally favours coking coal, but it inverted in mid-2022 and miners switched coal to the thermal market. (researched)
- Coal mining: Coking coal is the premium product of coal mining, dug from specific seams and washed to steelmaking grade; India mines about 67 Mt but its coal is high in ash, so it imports about 90% of its metallurgical coal and is pushing to reach 140 Mt of domestic output by 2030. (researched)
- Carbon black: Coking coal is a raw material for carbon black; their prices have moved together.
- Ammonium sulphate: Their prices have moved together.
- Coal transport: Their prices have moved together.
- Construction and infrastructure: Construction and infrastructure depends on coking coal.
- Hydrogen: Their prices have moved together.
- Iron ore: Their prices have moved together.
- Machinery and equipment: Machinery and equipment depends on coking coal.
- Metal products: Metal products depends on coking coal.
- Steel plant energy recovery: Steel plant energy recovery needs coking coal.
- Vehicles, ships, rail, aircraft: Vehicles, ships, rail, aircraft depends on coking coal.
- Water and sanitation: Water and sanitation depends on coking coal.