An employee at Moranbah North mine
Metallurgical coal is high-quality black coal primarily used for steel making. We are the third largest producer of metallurgical coal in the world.
Metallurgical coal can be broken up into two main categories: coking coal and PCI (pulverised coal injection), and is used in the steel industry, as opposed to the lower grade thermal coal that is used to generate electricity in power stations. It comes in three coking coal categories: hard coking, soft coking and semi-soft coking. PCI coal is treated as a separate product.
Where is it found?
Metallurgical coal is produced in relatively few countries, with much of it consumed in the country where it is produced. The exception for this is in Australia and Canada where the majority is exported. The largest metallurgical coal reserves are in China, which in 2009 produced 560 million tonnes out of a total global output of 915 million tonnes. Australia, Canada and the USA together make up more than 90% of the seaborne met coal market, which accounts for 23% of total global volumes.
Our Capcoal, Dawson, Foxleigh and Moranbah North mines in Australia produce high-quality metallurgical coal.
How much metallurgical coal does Anglo American produce?
We are currently the world’s number three producer of metallurgical coal. Most of our metallurgical coal is mined in Australia at our mines in Queensland. In 2009, we produced a total of 12.6 million tonnes (attributable) of metallurgical coal products, all of which was exported. Two new hard coking mines, Grosvenor and Moranbah South are planned to come on stream by 2020. Teamed with other brownfield expansions, these projects will take our annual production of metallurgical coal to more than 24 million tonnes (attributable) in 2020.
End use products
Almost three-quarters of the metallurgical coal produced around the world is used in the steel industry, with the remainder being mostly used in the smelting of other metals materials, such as zinc. Coke is formed by heating metallurgical coal in an oven at temperatures of more than 1,000oC. The coking process fuses together all the fixed carbon and residual ash, with the volatile components of the coal (water, hydocarbons, coal tar) being driven off. The coke is then fed into the blast furnace where it acts as a reducing agent and converts iron ore into molten iron (pig iron). The pig iron is then fed into a blast oxygen furnace where it is turned into crude steel.
High-quality metallurgical coal has low impurity levels (ash) and strong caking properties: the ability of a coal to be softened, liquefied and resolidified into hard and porous lumps that is strong enough to resist the weight of overburden in the blast furnace. PCI coal is crushed into a fine powder and injected directly into blast furnaces as a replacement for coke in the production of pig iron. PCI coals are high energy and carbon content coals.