By Sadananda Mohapatra, Senior Business Journalist
The Coking Coal Exception: Why Imports Climbed in July
India cut its overall coal imports in June and July 2026. Except for the kind that makes steel.
While thermal coal shipments fell as the government’s import substitution push took effect, coking coal traffic at major Indian ports surged in July, with Haldia, Paradip, Visakhapatnam and VOC Port in Tamil Nadu all recording sharp volume increases. The timing was not coincidental. It was a market response to a price window that opened briefly and that India’s steel mills moved quickly to exploit.
The trigger came from China. Safety shutdowns at coking coal mines across Shanxi province in May and June 2026 drove Chinese mills into the seaborne market aggressively, pushing Australian premium hard coking coal prices sharply higher and crowding out price-sensitive Indian buyers. Indian steel mills, already cautious through the April to June quarter, held back purchases and waited. When Chinese domestic mines restarted and global supply improved, prices corrected rapidly. Australian premium hard coking coal fell from around USD 239 per tonne in June to approximately USD 222 per tonne by late July. Indian mills moved immediately.
The price correction was real but only partially captured by Indian buyers. Freight costs from Australia to east coast Indian ports absorbed a significant portion of the FOB price decline, with delivered prices at Paradip remaining around USD 243 per tonne even as Australian export prices fell. Mills were buying opportunistically but within a narrower margin than the headline price movement suggested.
The July surge sits awkwardly against the government’s broader import substitution narrative. Bharat Coking Coal Limited has been running expanded domestic auctions. Jindal Steel has pioneered coal gasification at its Angul plant to partially substitute imported coking coal in blast furnace operations. These are meaningful steps on a very long road. India’s installed crude steel capacity of around 222 million tonnes per annum runs overwhelmingly on blast furnace technology that requires high-grade metallurgical coal. Domestic reserves are insufficient in both volume and quality to bridge that gap in any near-term timeframe.
Steel production grew modestly in July at 14.3 million tonnes, up just 1.2% year on year. Yet finished steel consumption grew 6.5%, meaning mills were drawing down inventories to meet demand. The coking coal buying was not production-driven. It was strategic restocking at a favourable price.
When prices fall, India buys. That is not a strategy. It is a vulnerability dressed as opportunism. Closing it requires domestic coking coal quality upgrades and gasification scale-up that will take years, not quarters.
Joules Capsule: Weekly Round-Up
India Crosses 300 GW of Clean Power Capacity
India has crossed 300 gigawatts of non-fossil fuel electricity generation capacity as of July 31, 2026, surpassing 60% of its 2030 target of 500 gigawatts. The milestone breaks down as follows: solar at 164.59 gigawatts leads the mix, followed by wind at 58.14 gigawatts, large and small hydro at 57.24 gigawatts, bio-power at 11.75 gigawatts and nuclear at 8.78 gigawatts. Non-fossil sources now account for over 54% of India’s total installed electricity capacity of around 552 gigawatts. The remaining 40% of the 2030 target requires adding 200 gigawatts in roughly four years, a pace that will demand sustained policy support and private capital at scale.
Gujarat Mandates 51% Renewable Power for AI Data Centres
Gujarat has become the first Indian state to require artificial intelligence data centres to source at least 51% of their power from renewable energy as a condition for accessing state policy benefits. The move puts Gujarat ahead of national policy on data centre energy standards and signals that states are beginning to attach green energy conditions to the technology investments they are competing to attract. For data centre developers planning facilities in India, the Gujarat mandate sets a benchmark that other states are likely to follow as the sector’s electricity consumption becomes too large to ignore.
Odisha’s Coal Gasification Project Takes Shape
Bharat Coal Gasification and Chemicals Limited, the joint venture between Coal India Limited and state-owned engineering company Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited, briefed Odisha’s Chief Secretary this week on progress at what will be India’s first commercial surface coal gasification plant. The facility, being built in Odisha with an investment of Rs 25,000 crore (approximately USD 3 billion), will produce 660,000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate annually, a key input for mining explosives and industrial chemicals. Coal feedstock will be supplied by Mahanadi Coalfields Limited. The project directly addresses India’s near-total dependence on imported ammonia and reduces the chemical import bill that the West Asia crisis has made considerably more expensive.
About the Author:
Sadananda Mohapatra is a veteran business journalist with decades of experience covering India’s emergy, industry, and economic landscape. With stints at reputed financial news publications like The Business Standard & NewsWire18, he reported extensively on India’s power sector, minerals policy, coal and energy regulation, and industrial developments — building a deep, ground-level understanding of the global energy economy. His work spans corporate affairs, infrastructure, and policy analysis, with a particular focus on eastern India’s resource-rich industrial corridor. He currently writes on the global energy landscape through his newsletter, The Joule’s Stack.
