Optimism for seeing some relaxation, at least, on the Supreme Court Petcoke ban is prevailing among the users of the fuel in India. Petcoke users, spoken to by CoalMint, said that interactions of industry representatives and the relevant authorities in the government were going on to influence in bringing about some relaxation in the ban. However, there was no development in this regard until this report was filed.
The ban, which includes the Delhi/NCR as of now, however excludes Rajasthan (barring the Alwar and Bharatpur districts, which fall in the NCR); thus bringing in a sigh of relief to the cement makers. As a matter of fact, 12% of the total limestone reserve in India is situated in Rajasthan, due to which many cement plants are situated in the state.
On the pricing matters, the global offers have somewhat drifted downwards as export supply has resumed from the key international regions, after a temporary halt following the Harvey hurricane incident in late Aug’17 in USA.
The latest offer for Petcoke (6.5% Sulphur) from USA is assessed at around USD 104/MT CFR India, lower by around USD 6/MT over the week-ago rate. The recent offer for Petcoke (9% Sulphur) from Saudi Arabia is assessed at around USD 102/MT CFR India, down from the offer in the last week by around USD 5/MT.
Source: CoalMint Research
Importers have told CoalMint that they expected the offers to come down further due to the increasing supply.
In the home market, the largest Petcoke producer—Reliance Industries Limited—and the second largest producer—Essar– have kept their ex-works prices unchanged. Notably, the reason behind keeping the prices stagnant even at a time when the demand has weakened and offers gradually sliding is best known the company managements.
Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), the largest Petcoke producer in India, has quoted its ex-works price at INR 8,100/MT, and Essar, the second largest producer has quoted its ex-works price at INR 8,090/MT.
Source: CoalMint Research
However, Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Limited (MRPL) has raised its ex-works price by INR 590/MT to INR 6,950/MT. The rationale behind hiking the ex-works price apparently lies in its attempt to capitalize upon the strong demand in the southern region of the country, which is beyond the influence of the Supreme Court ban.
Meanwhile, the 300,000 barrel per day Coker of MRPL, running at half the capacity due to a technical glitch, is expected to run at full capacity by the next week, as heard.
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