Prices

Weekly Indices

The SCRs are produced using our Top & Tailed Mid of Mids methodology from a weekly industry survey open to all market participants. There is no membership fee, no subscription fee and no requirement to belong to a private pricing club. Every credible market participant has a voice.

Before publication, the interim SCR prices are circulated through our Confirm or Challenge process. A broad and balanced panel of producers, traders and consumers is invited either to confirm the interim prices or to challenge them with evidence. Each week, SCR publishes the number of direct price inputs received, the number of confirmations and the number of challenges. That makes SCR the most scrutinised non-black-box coal price discovery process in the market.

SCR is therefore NOT based on unverifiable supposed trades, gossip, rumour, a subscription/conference salesperson’s estimate, a private-club number, contrived EFPs or an unregulated trading screen controlled by coal producers; where minimal volumes can influence the published price and where transactions can be subsequently be reversed away from public view in any event.

Although the Sceats Coal Report newsletter and its FOB Indonesia benchmarks were launched in summer 2024, the wider Sceats Family Office has benchmarked international coal markets for private clients since January 2017, including ARA, Colombia, Richards Bay and Newcastle.

Our weekly forward price outlook is published through the Peter Sceats LinkedIn channel; this  converts SCR’s own price survey plus market intelligence into sentiment for the coming week via SCR’s RainMan Ai coal model into the SCR Weekly Bull/Bear Survey.

SCR tells readers where the market stood at the weekly close and where its statistics suggest price is likely heading in the coming week.

SCR coal price data is not contaminated by producer-controlled or pricing clubs in which a minority dictate price to the majority who use the market.

SCR is not in the business of coal benchmarking to sell subscriptions and conference places. We are funded by advertising and data sales. We do not seek commercial relationships with coal producers, traders or consumers that could compromise, or appear to compromise, our independence.

We have nothing to hide. That is why we publish the range of direct price inputs, the number of contributors, the number of confirmations and the number of challenges every week. It is also why the use of SCR data in litigation is expressly permitted, why SCR price discovery has become the largest openly evidenced process in the Indonesian market, and why SCR benchmarks are used to price OTC coal derivatives.