BHP Billiton, the world's largest miner, said yesterday that it had moved a “significant portion” of its coking coal sales for 2010 to “shorter term market based pricing”, breaking away with the tradition of annual contracts and mutually agreed prices.
“These settlements reflect the company's commitment to achieving market clearing prices over time across all its bulk commodities,” the company said in a statement. It said it had reached agreements with customers in Japan, China, India and Europe.
The price of coking coal under the contracts will surge initially by about 55 per cent, according to one Japanese steelmaker. Coking coal is used, together with iron ore, in blast furnaces to manufacture steel.
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