It is reported that the Russian steel producer Novolipetsk Steel is considering signing a long term contract for the supply of coking coal from North America, due to the lack of its own coking coal supplies and the shortage of high quality raw materials in the Russian market.

Accordingly, for the current year NLMK is considering importing from North America about ten percent of its annual requirement of hard coking coal at a level below the spot price. According to market analysts, in 2010 NLMK will require about 4.6 million tonne to 4.9 million tonne of coking coal.

In addition, in order to protect itself from rising coal prices for coal, NLMK is also considering the resumption of the development of its Zhernovskoe-1 coking coal mine, which has an estimated 240 million tonne of coal reserves. Previously, NLMK said that this asset could reach a production capacity of 3 million tonne of coking coal by 2012, but later these targets were postponed due to the global economic crisis and the high level of anticipated costs.

(Sourced from Steel Orbis)