Japan's JFE Steel Corp has rejected a proposal of monthly pricing for coking coal from Australia's BHP Billiton as such a move would make its costs difficult to predict.

Mr Eiji Hayashida president of JFE told a news conference that "We strongly oppose such a change and we will never accept it. Such a shift will make steelmakers' earnings unpredictable, and steel-using companies will not be able to draw up stable production plans if prices change frequently."

Mr Hayashida said JFE and BHP are yet to start formal talks, and declined to give details of BHP's proposals.

The Japan Metal Bulletin, an industry daily said that BHP, the world's biggest diversified miner, wanted monthly pricing to replace quarterly pricing for half the volume of its coal supply to each Japanese steelmaker.

Earlier this week, Sumitomo Metal Industries Japan's third biggest steelmaker, said it had received a proposal from BHP Billiton on a new pricing scheme for supplying coking coal after April.

(Sourced from Reuters)