New Delhi, Nov. 4 -- The steel ministry's efforts to reduce heavy dependence on Australia for coking coal imports by diversifying sources are bearing fruit. Imports from the land of kangaroos fell to 54 per cent in 2025, down from 73 per cent in 2019.
Around 90 per cent of India's coking coal requirement, a key raw material for steelmaking in the BF-BOF route, is met through imports because India has limited availability of high-quality, low-ash coking coal.
Industry has long flagged to the government the issue of heavy reliance on a single geography. Though Australia remains the largest source of India's coking coal imports, imports from Russia, the US, Mozambique and Indonesia are gaining traction.
"There is an increase in the case of Russia from 0.62 per cent to 8.15 per cent. Similarly, imports from the US have risen from 8 per cent to 17 per cent. Imports from Mozambique have gone up from 4 per cent to 7.31 per cent. Indonesia has gone up from 2.46 per cent to 4 per cent," the steel ministry said in a deposition to a parliamentary standing committee.
The Indian steel sector imported 58 million tonnes of coking coal in FY25, up from 57 MT in FY24 at a cost of around Rs 1.5 lakh crore. The government has launched Mission Coking Coal under the Aatmanirbhar Coal Mission, targeting 140 MT of domestic raw coking coal production by 2030 - 105 MT from Coal India Limited and 35 MT from private allocations- while aiming to increase blending of domestic coal from 10 per cent to 30 per cent in steelmaking.
Globally, high-quality hard coking coal is concentrated in a few countries. Australia accounts for over 50 per cent of internationally traded coking coal because of its high-quality reserves, stable mining ecosystem, and efficient logistics. Other producing regions-the USA, Canada, Russia, and Mozambique-have smaller, more volatile export capacities.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.