It is reported that China's coal price and growth dipped MoM in October, but still remained high. Analysts expected that thermal coal and coking coal would perform differently in the forth quarter.

Attacked by international sliding price of crude oil and coal, domestic average coal price weakened from September CNY 849.54per tonne to CNY 808.63 per tonne in October the first drop of this year. And the monthly growth also declined to 79.4% MoM from 91.68% YoY which is still 59.64% higher than that in the beginning of this year.

As stagnant metallurgical industry sharply damped demand for metallurgical coal like coking coal and fat coal, prices slipped, even faster than thermal coal's. In October, the average price of coking coal, cleaned coal and fat coal stayed at CNY 1687.9 per tonne up by 124.68% YoY but 19% MoM lower than CNY 1822.9 per tonne with a growth of 144.03% YoY in September. The average price of thermal coal in October rose 74.69% YoY to CNY 788.32 per tonne but still moved lower than CNY 814.14 per tonne in September decreasing 12% MoM from September 86.3% in growth.

Mr Yan Haojun coal industry analyst of Shanghai Securities said the coming electricity consumption peak and limited hydropower would prop up the demand for thermal power in the forth quarter, which will bring along rising production of thermal coal, and lend a firm support to the coal price.