Platts announced that it will launch the world's first daily metallurgical coal assessments on March 15th 2010, which will address miners and steel mills needs for an independent daily spot assessment in the burgeoning Asian market to better determine pricing for short and long term contracts.

The two assessments, reflecting hard coking coal loading in Australia for any destination and delivered into China from any potential source, complement both Platts' existing monthly coking coal assessments published in International Coal Report and Platts' IODEX iron ore assessments published in Steel Markets Daily providing greater transparency into pricing in the steelmaking supply chain in the Asia-Pacific region. Coke, made in ovens from coking coal, provides the heat and combustion that is required in steel mill blast furnaces.

Mr Francis Browne Global Director of Steel of Platts said that "These new assessments, along with a dry bulk freight price from Australia to China, allow us to deepen our analysis of blast furnace economics, particularly those in China. It's our hope the price transparency provided by Platts for this vital steel making ingredient will meet the global industry's need for comparative valuations of coking and other metallurgical coals.”

Platts' Hard Coking Coal FOB Australia and Hard Coking Coal CFR China assessments will capture the value in US dollars per dry metric ton of hard coking coal loading free on board in key Queensland, Australia ports and cargoes delivered on a cost and freight basis to main Chinese ports.

Platts will also launch a daily dry bulk freight assessment representing the cost of freight for cargoes carried on Panamax class vessels from Australia to China as a normalization guide in the coking coal price assessment process.

All three assessments will be published in Steel Markets Daily, Coal Trader International, International Coal Report, and on the real time service Platts' Metals Alert.