Sumitomo Metal Industries Ltd. and Kobe Steel Ltd., Japan's third- and fourth-largest steelmakers, obtained a 10 percent reduction in the price of coking coal, a key raw material.

Sumitomo Metal agreed to pay Anglo American Plc and BHP Billiton Ltd. about $285 a ton for the three months starting Oct. 1, compared with $315 a ton this quarter, according to an e- mailed statement. Kobe Steel settled a deal with suppliers at about $285 a metric ton, Ryuichi Nakagami, a spokesman for the Kobe-based company, said today by telephone.

Coking coal prices are declining from the April-to-June quarter, when steelmakers paid a record $330 a ton after supply from Australia was disrupted by heavy rain and flooding. Mining companies last year scrapped a decades-old system of annual contracts and switched to quarterly accords.

Sumitomo Metal also agreed with BHP to buy half of its coking coal on a monthly basis and the rest through quarterly contracts, the steelmaker said.

Japanese steelmakers settled coking coal deals with Anglo American, the Nikkei newspaper reported earlier today, without saying where it obtained the information.