The influence of hydrothermal treatment of coal prior to carbonization, on the oxidation susceptibility of resultant coke/char, calcined at 1350, 1800 and 2200 degreesC has been investigated. The non-isothermal thermogravimetric analysis technique has been employed, and parameters such as onset, DTG peak temperatures, and cumulative oxidation loss (wt.%) at different temperatures have been utilized to compare proneness to oxidation with respective untreated samples apart from electrical resistivity. Data suggest that all the cokes/chars samples produced from hydrothermally treated coals are less reactive and more electrically conductive (less resistive) than their respective untreated counterparts. But the extent of improvement of oxidation resistance and electrical conductivity appears to be coal-specific. The kinetic parameters obtained by non-linear regression analysis on multi-curve reveal that the n(th) order reaction model (where 'n' was found to vary from 0.9 to 1.3) is the best-fitted model. The higher activation energy values observed for hydrothermally treated coke samples are in agreement with the observation of TG analysis data. Overall results indicate the importance of introducing a hydrothermal treatment step for the improvement of oxidation resistance as well as electrical conductivity of the coke samples. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.