Market overview
This week, as the price of petroleum coke continued to fall to low levels, downstream companies began to purchase in the market, overall refinery shipments improved, inventories fell, and coke prices gradually stopped falling to stabilize. This week, the coking price of Sinopec’s refineries fell by 150 to 680 yuan/ton, some coking prices of petrochina’s refineries fell by 240 to 350 yuan/ton, the coking price of CNOOC’s refineries was generally weak and stable, and most of the coking prices of local refineries fell by 50 to 1,130 yuan/ton.
Petroleum coke market influences this week: Medium and high sulfur oil coke: 1. Sinopec, all its refineries are impacted greatly by the downward price of petroleum coke from local refineries, and the overall shipment is not so good, the coke price is generally down this week, and the shipment of medium sulfur petroleum coke is not so bad in the areas along the Yangtze River. The coking unit of Anqing Petrochemical is expected to start operation after the New Year’s Day, and the petroleum coke of Jingmen Petrochemical will start shipping in accordance with 3#B this week. 2. Affected by the overall downward trend of the market, the price of petroleum coke of Yumen and Lanzhou petrochemical in the northwest region of petrochina continued to drop 260-350 yuan/ton this week; This week, the refinery coke price in Xinjiang region was temporarily stable, the inventory increased slightly, and the coke price of Dushanzi Petrochemical dropped 100 yuan/ton last week; 3. In terms of local refineries, the local petroleum coke market stops falling and stabilizes. As the local coking price gradually drops to a low level, downstream enterprises’ purchasing enthusiasm increases, and downstream carbon enterprises begin to pay back, and the financial pressure of enterprises decreases. Local refinery oil coke inventory pressure reduced, coke prices began to stop falling; Fourth, port, at the end of the month, imported petroleum coke arrived in port, port petroleum coke shipment pressure, inventory still remains high. Domestic petroleum coke prices continue to fall this week, the port sponge coke prices formed a pressure, port sponge coke prices have declined to varying degrees. In terms of low sulfur petroleum coke: this week, the low oil coke in the northeast region of the refinery of petrochina remained weak and stable. The shipment situation of low sulfur coke market was still lower than expected. The downstream enterprises had a wait-and-see attitude and mainly digested the initial inventory. In this week’s market, Daqing, Fushun, Jinxi, Jinzhou Petrochemical petroleum coke continued to guarantee sales this week, the price is temporarily stable, and the opening price will be announced at the end of the month. Liaohe, Jilin Petrochemical coke price maintenance this week, shipments slightly general; North China Dagang Petrochemical bidding this week the latest price of 5130 yuan/ton, month-on-month decline. This week, all the petroleum coke prices offered by CNOOC’s refineries were stable. The coking unit of Taizhou Petrochemical started to produce coke on December 22, and the latest price was 4,900 yuan/ton from Tuesday.
This week refined petroleum coke market stopped falling and stabilized, the range of 50-1130 yuan/ton. As the local coking price gradually drops to a low level, the purchasing enthusiasm of downstream enterprises increases, and the downstream carbon enterprises begin to pay back, and the financial pressure of enterprises decreases. At present, the petroleum coke inventory of downstream carbon enterprises is at a low level, and the overall demand for petroleum coke is still there. The purchasing sentiment of enterprises is relatively high, the petroleum coke inventory pressure of local refineries decreases, and the coke price begins to stop falling. Some low-priced petroleum coke inventory reduced to a low level, coke prices began to rise 50-100 yuan/ton. Northeast petroleum coke shipment stable, downstream according to demand procurement; Northwest area asphalt coke market trading still show general. As of December 29, there are 5 conventional maintenance of local coking units. This week, one coking unit was opened or shut down, and the daily output of some refineries was slightly adjusted. As of Thursday, the daily output of petroleum coke was 37,370 tons, and the operating rate of petroleum coke was 72.54%, 2.92% lower than last week. As of this Thursday, low sulfur coke (S1.5% within) factory mainstream transaction 4200-4300 yuan/ton, medium sulfur coke (S3.0% within) factory mainstream transaction 2100-2850 yuan/ton; High sulfur high vanadium coke (sulfur content about 5.0%) factory mainstream transaction 1223-1600 yuan/ton.
Supply side
As of December 29, there are 7 conventional maintenance of local coking units. This week, one coking unit is opened or shut down, and another set of 6 million tons/year newly built coking unit is put into production. At present, all of them are used by themselves. As of Thursday, the daily output of petroleum coke in the field was 85,472 tons, and the operating rate of coking in the field was 71.40 percent, up 1.18 percent from the previous week.
Demand side
This week, the financial pressure of downstream carbon enterprises is slightly eased, and due to the good supply of domestic petroleum coke and the high price in the early stage, as well as the influence of the mentality of “buy up, don’t buy down”, the inventory of raw petroleum coke of downstream enterprises is at a low level. At present, with the coke price falling to a low level, downstream enterprises have begun to increase their enthusiasm to purchase in the market.
Inventory aspect
This week, as the domestic petroleum coke market price continues to decline, downstream purchasing enthusiasm gradually increased, refinery petroleum coke inventory began to decline, the overall drop to the median level; Port petroleum coke by domestic coke price decline pressure, the speed of delivery continues to slow down, and imported coke is still arriving at the port, port petroleum coke inventory is still at a high level.
Port quotation
The average daily shipment of major ports this week was 23,550 tons, and the total port inventory was 2.2484 million tons, down 0.34% from the previous month.
At the end of this week, imported petroleum coke arrived at the port in succession, the port petroleum coke shipment pressure, inventory remains high. This week, the price of domestic petroleum coke continued to fall, the port imported sponge coke price formed a pressure, the port sponge coke price decreased to varying degrees; Because the cost of imported sponge coke is high at present, and at the end of the year some traders are eager to collect money, spot sales losses are larger, but the downstream receiving situation is still not ideal. In terms of fuel coke, the bidding price of downstream power plants and cement plants goes down, the trading volume of high-sulfur pellet coke market is average, and the downstream demand of medium-low sulfur pellet coke is stable. Formosa Petrochemical bid for two ships of petroleum coke in January 2023, with an average price of $299 / ton.
Formosa Petrochemical Co., LTD., January 2023, 2 ships of petroleum coke bid: the average bid price (FOB) this time is about $299 / ton; The shipment date is January 25, 2023 – January 27, 2023, and January 27, 2023 – January 29, 2023 from Mailiao Port, Taiwan. The quantity of petroleum coke per ship is about 6,500-7,000 tons, and the sulfur content is about 9%. The bidding price is FOB Mailiao Port.
The United States sulfur 2% pellet Coke in December CIF about 280-290 dollars/ton. American sulfur 3% pellet Coke in December CIF 255-260 USD/ton. Us S5%-6% high sulfur pellet coke in December CIF 185-190 USD/ton, Saudi pellet coke in December price 175-180 USD/ton. The average price of Taiwan Coke in January 2023 FOB is around $299 / ton.
Future market forecast
Low sulphur Coke: As the Chinese New Year approaches and market demand continues to weaken, combined with frequent outbreaks of COVID-19 in various regions, the company expects some low sulphur coke prices to continue to dip next week. Medium and high sulfur petroleum coke: Next week coincided with the beginning of the year, the financial pressure of downstream enterprises was relieved, combined with several low levels of enterprises’ raw petroleum coke inventory, and the overall demand for petroleum coke in the market was still there. Therefore, Baichuan Surplus predicted that the high-sulfur petroleum coke in main refineries would remain stable next week, while the price of petroleum coke in local refineries would stop falling and stabilize, and some low-price petroleum coke prices are expected to rise, with a range of 100-200 yuan/ton.
Post time: Jan-12-2023