New Delhi: India spots considerable major opportunities to import more coking coal from the United States as the South Asian nation scales its steelmaking capacity, Vikram Dutt, the top official at the country’s coal ministry, said on Thursday.
India held bilateral discussions with officials from the U.S. Department of Energy ahead of the India Energy Week event, which is currently underway, Dutt said.
The officials from the US Department of Energy engaged in a bilateral discussion with India ahead of the India Energy Week event, Dutt said, and the event is currently in progress.
The world’s second-biggest crude steel producer, India, relies on imports for about 85% of its coking coal needs. In which more than half comes from Australia, and New Delhi has been looking to diversify its supplies.
The US currently accounts for about 10% of India’s coking coal imports, and the high ash content in India’s domestic coal limits its use in steelmaking.
The United States is ‘actively trying’ to support its coal industry and increase exports, Kyle Haustveit, an official with the U.S. Department of Energy, said.
“We’re here to meet with the Indian government to ensure that we’re partnering together through innovation and technology transfer,” Kyle Haustveit said.
Neither Haustveit nor Dutt indicated by how much India could increase its imports of coking coal.
Dutt and Haustveit both had no answers on how much India could increase its imports of coking coal. The US exports just 10 per cent of India’s coking coal, and now that the India-EU free trade agreement is signed, the scope of increasing coking coal imports from the US is not looking like a clean path.
Indian and US officials are also holding talks on a potential bilateral trade deal after discussions collapsed last year following a communication gap that has widened between the two governments.