Potential supply cuts have the price of metallurgical coal -- the kind used to make steel -- poised to do something it hasn’t done since October 2013: rise.
The benchmark contract for the coal may gain by a few dollars in the second quarter amid speculation that China is curtailing supply amid high costs, Mark Levin, a coal analyst at BB&T Capital Markets in Richmond, Virginia, said in a note to clients on Friday. An increase would pause a rout that began in 2011 when prices peaked at $330 a metric ton.
