Giving the opening presentation at the annual Met Coke World Summit, which is being held today and Thursday in Chicago, Ill., USA, Quanci said that said coke makers have been getting by through “sweating” assets, making them produce above and beyond rated capacity. But as coke assets age and as steel demand appears poised for growth, producers have to ask whether it’s still a feasible way to operate.

If not, he said they’ll have to consider the demand picture in two years out, about the amount of time it would take to bring new capacity on-line.

Complicating the investment decision, he said, is that there are about 1.8 million tons' worth of cokemaking capacity that is sitting idle, enough to support about 4 million tons of steel production. But he said it’s uncertain as to whether that capacity could be restarted and whether it is geographically in range of the blast furnaces that would take the output.