Chinese coking coal imports fell 24.5% in February to 5.4 million mt, with the drop in volumes from Mongolia and Australia contributing to the plunge, data released by the General Administration of Customs showed.

Chinese imports were, however, 16% higher than a year ago.

Australia remained the largest shipper of the steelmaking ingredient into China with 2.58 million mt, down 24.5% from January but up 93% on year.

Rather unusually, Canada was the second-largest supplier with 1.21 million mt, up 21% month on month and 62% year on year.

Russia was next with 527,383 mt, down 13% from January but up 35% year on year.

Coking coal imports from the US in February totaled 408,740 mt, more than double the volumes in January, and more than triple from February 2012.

Mongolia, meanwhile, saw a dramatic 76% reduction month on month and an 80.7% year-on-year plunge at just 336,074 mt exported to China in February.

Indonesian coking coal amounted to 200,377 mt and Colombian coking coal 36,000 mt among China's February imports.

Mozambique, meanwhile, shipped another 70,282 mt to China in February, bringing the total to date to 231,831 mt since the East African country starting export metallurgical coal.

Source: Platts