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. SCR assessments use the industry-standard 60-day spot window and the typical coal specifications published on our website’s Coal Specs tab.

Qualifying trades for delivery within that window are considered whether expressed as fixed outright prices or as premiums or discounts to an identified index. Those premiums and discounts (when not for coal spec and/or financing reasons) represent the market’s correction to the referenced benchmark. Excluding them would disregard expressed coal value and prevent the assessment from fully reflecting the market.

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 group has benchmarked international coal markets for private clients since January 2017, including ARA, Colombia, Richards Bay and Newcastle.

The SCR Weekly Report is published through our founder’s Linkedin channel and details of our price survey and the likely direction of coal prices over the coming week according to SCR’s RainMan-Ai supply & demand model.

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

SCR coal price data is not contaminated by producer-influenced 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 even 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.