Because the upstream coal price is firm and the downstream steel market is depressed, the coke industry in the middle link is in an embarrassing situation where profits are squeezed. The pressure of rising costs in the coke industry is increasing, and the profit margin is gradually decreasing. The five major coke producing areas were forced to take joint measures to limit production and protect prices.
The pressure hit
Since the beginning of this year, the arrival of coking coal in most coking enterprises has been poor. With the implementation of rectification measures in the national coal industry, the concentration of the coal industry has been further improved, and the price of coking coal has been firm. In the international market, the price of coking coal has soared to $200/ton in the second quarter, which will certainly continue to stimulate the domestic coking coal price. At the same time, BHP Billiton, the world's largest coking coal producer, has raised the contract price of coking coal in the third quarter to $225/ton, up about 13% from the previous quarter ($200/ton) and up nearly 70% from the same period last year.
On the one hand, it is restricted by rising costs, on the other hand, it is affected by the continuous decline of steel prices. As the downstream of coking industry, steel price has a far-reaching impact on coke price. Steel prices rose rapidly in March and April this year and fell rapidly in May. Due to the influence of national policies and heavy rain in the south, the project construction and transportation are hindered. By the end of May, the steel stocks of major cities in China were still at a high level.
Since the middle and late May, the steel market price has plummeted, and steel mills have generally suffered losses, demanding that the purchase price of coke be reduced. However, coking enterprises also have losses due to the high price of coking coal, so they have been holding a wait-and-see attitude towards the price reduction proposed by steel mills.
However, in the later period, when the steel mills restricted purchases and the coking plant's inventory increased significantly, in order to ensure the circulation of products, the coking plant had to accept the downward adjustment of the coke market price, and at the same time took measures to limit production and protect the price, hoping to maintain the coke price. Among them, coking enterprises in Shanxi limited production by 40%, and coking enterprises in Hebei, Shandong, Shaanxi and Inner Mongolia limited production by 30%.
cause analysis
Limited production and insured price did not achieve the expected effect, and the analysis reason was that the enterprise did not implement it thoroughly. 20 10 in April, China * * * produced 32.446 million tons of coke, 7.764 million tons more than the same period last year, up 31.5% year-on-year; By April this year, the country had produced a total of 25,554 tons of coke/kloc-0, an increase of 27192,000 tons over the same period of last year, with an increase rate of 27.6%. Due to the increase of coke price in early April, coking enterprises have a certain profit, so most coking enterprises only produce 10%-20%.
Judging from the current overall situation, the coke market is still not optimistic. The export situation of the whole coke industry is not optimistic because it has not completely shaken off the impact of the economic crisis. Poor export leads to a large number of coke production capacity not being well digested, and a large number of coke resources turn to domestic sales, resulting in a surplus of domestic sales resources, forcing coke prices to maintain a low consolidation trend.
In addition, due to the recent continuous decline in the steel market, most steel mills have sufficient coke stocks, which has led to the recent introduction of coke-restricted policies in steel mills and poor sales. The phenomenon of "full inventory" of coke in coking plant still exists, and it is difficult to effectively improve the sluggish demand of coke market.
The fundamental reason for this situation lies in the overcapacity of the coke industry in China. At present, except for the relatively loose relationship between supply and demand in southwest China, the problem of oversupply and overcapacity of coke in northwest and north China is still very serious.
In essence, to solve the problem of overcapacity, local governments are required to strictly follow the national macro-control policies, raise the standards for eliminating backward production capacity, eliminate tamping coke ovens of 4.3 meters or less and top-loading coke ovens of 6 meters or less, and gradually resolve the contradiction of overcapacity by tightening imports while eliminating backward production capacity. At the same time, stop the examination and approval of all new coking projects, postpone or stop the construction of new projects and projects with incomplete procedures, and avoid a new round of repeated construction; At the same time, give full play to the role of local coke industry associations to safeguard the overall interests and long-term interests of the industry.
In addition, trade associations should actively assist the relevant government departments to do a good job in self-discipline in terms of total coking production, product quality, market price, environmental protection, comprehensive utilization, marketing and industry image, accelerate the pace of eliminating backward production capacity, promote structural adjustment and industrial upgrading of the coking industry, and finally form a large-scale and competitive coking enterprise to ensure the normal operation of the whole industry.
follow-up action
Since the beginning of summer, China's steel and coal industries have been subjected to several rounds of price suppression. The fundamental reason is that the supply of top raw materials has been controlled. In the past, China was famous for its vast territory and rich natural resources. Because we have abundant mineral resources, we never worry about being squeezed out of the market by international monopoly groups because of the shortage of raw materials. Now, we have to admit that we have lost the initiative. It has become the future development direction of China's heavy industry manufacturing industry to protect local resources from over-exploitation and utilization and win the right to use foreign legal minerals through diplomatic means.
Analysis on the Forming Factors of Coke Price
The basic factor of coke price fluctuation is the relationship between market supply and demand, and other factors affect the price by influencing the relationship between supply and demand.
Market supply and demand relationship
The most important thing in price analysis is to study the relationship between supply and demand. The relationship between supply and demand refers to the relationship between supply and demand of commodities under the condition of market economy, and it is a reflection of the relationship between production and consumption in the market. When supply exceeds demand, its price falls, and vice versa. At the same time, prices will in turn affect supply and demand, that is, when prices rise, supply will increase, demand will decrease, and vice versa.
Demand increases, supply decreases, so prices and supply and demand interact.
In recent years, the relationship between supply and demand is generally tight, and the leading factor of tight domestic coke supply is no longer demand expansion, but supply shortage caused by the dual constraints of insufficient transportation capacity and continuous shortage of resources. However, we should also see that while the demand for coke in developed countries has decreased due to the economic crisis, the rapid economic growth in developing countries will make up for the gap in demand reduction in developed countries.
Coke inventory
Inventory status is an important indicator of supply and demand analysis. Production, trade and consumers mainly adjust their inventory according to the change of coke price and their own inventory capacity. Inventory is an important index to analyze the trend of coke price. For example, Tianjin Port, which accounts for 75% of the country's coke exports, has become the weather vane of China's export coke price. Inventory is divided into reported inventory and non-reported inventory. Declared inventory, also known as "explicit inventory", refers to the inventory of the exchange.
Unreported inventory, also known as "hidden inventory", refers to the inventory held by manufacturers, traders and consumers all over the world. Because these inventories are published irregularly, it is difficult to make statistics, so they are generally measured by exchange inventories.
Coke import and export
To analyze the relationship between supply and demand of coke, we should pay attention to the import and export of coke in China. Because the export price of coke is basically linked to the domestic price, the quota quantity also plays a key role.
National policy changes
The influence of national policies on prices is obvious. With the promotion of energy conservation and emission reduction, the government has closed many small coal mines, and the coal supply will still be tight, so the coal price will rise, which will inevitably push up the coke price. National import and export policy, especially tariff policy, is an important means to control the import and export volume of a commodity and balance domestic supply and demand by adjusting the import and export cost of a commodity. In addition, the large-scale integration of the coal industry in Shanxi Province and the adjustment of the export tariff rate by the state are all factors that push up the price of coke. The provinces will speed up the elimination of backward coking capacity and tighten supply.
Industrial development trend
Consumption is a direct factor affecting the price of coke, and the development of coke industry is an important factor affecting consumption. Among them, production cost is the basis of measuring commodity price level.
Related industry status
Paying attention to the price changes of upstream and downstream products and the changing trend of other energy resources products is helpful to the analysis and research of coke price. Such as: the shortage of upstream main coking coal and coking coal blending, the fluctuation of international oil price, the release of steel industry capacity, etc.
Macro-economic situation
Coke is an important industrial raw material and its demand is closely related to the economic situation. When the economy grows, the demand for coke increases, thus pushing up the price of coke. When the economy is depressed, the demand for coke shrinks, thus pushing the price of coke down. When analyzing the macro-economy, two indicators are very important, one is the economic growth rate, or GDP growth rate, and the other is the growth of industrial production. Macroeconomic development cycle, prosperity, economic development trend, exchange rate changes, etc. It is also the background information of coke price change.
Market psychological fluctuation
The psychological factors of investors will also affect the price changes of coke commodities in the trading market. Psychological factors have played a role in helping the rise and fall. When investor confidence collapses, it often makes the market fall faster, and when investors are full of confidence, it often makes the market even crazier.