mineral exploration project – commodity prices – mining stock- trade and market

PLATTS has launched the world’s first daily coking coal index as it looks to exploit a push by BHP Billiton to abandon annually set pricing.

BHP Billiton attempt to move to quarterly or index-based pricing has been quicker than most expected, sparking a number of data providers to look at starting up spot price indexes for coking coal, which is used in steelmaking.

As well as Platts, US-based Energy Publishing has started up a weekly coking coal index for exports out of Queensland, while Britain’s Argus Media is also preparing an index.