But now it seems the correction is turning into a rout and the multi-year high of $308.80 for PHCC (Australia free-on-board premium hard coking coal tracked by the Steel Index) may have been the peak.

On Friday the price dropped 5.1% to $226 0 a tonne, the lowest since October 13 and one of the biggest declines on record. In 2011 floods in key export region in Queensland saw the coking coal price touch an all-time high $335 a tonne.

Still, the steelmaking raw material is up 178% in value in 2016 and quarterly contract negotiations between producers and steelmakers could turn out to be the best indicator of where coking coal is heading.

In a recent report TSI said the the low volatility seen in the spot market (the price hovered at its high for nearly three weeks) was a sign that going into quarterly negotiations Japanese steel mills were "wary of making panic buys during this period in order to avoid pushing the indices higher".

There was a more than $100 differential between the spot price average and the fourth quarter contract benchmark. For Q1 contracts, that gap would've all but closed.