Reliance Industries increases pet coke price for tenth consecutive month

Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) has increased petroleum coke price with effect from 1st Apr’21 to INR 11,203/t ex-Jamnagar refinery in Gujarat, over its last month’s price of INR 10,662/t — an increase of INR 541/t.

Nayara Energy (erstwhile Essar Oil) has also increased pet coke price to INR 11,239/t ex- Vadinar refinery in Gujarat, over its last month’s price of INR 10,697/t — an increase of INR 542/t.

Meanwhile, Indian-delivered prices for seaborne petroleum coke have also firmed up consistently following a steady resurgence in end-user demand from cement manufacturing companies.

The current average price of US-origin pet coke (6.5% sulphur) is assessed at around US$ 127-128 per tonne (t) on CNF India basis, compared with US$ 125-126/t in the last fortnight, thus indicating an increase of US$ 2/t over the past two-week period.

Offers for Saudi-origin pet coke (9% sulphur) are presently assessed at around US$ 125-126/t CNF India, as against the earlier price of around US$ 122-123/t, resulting in an increase of US$ 3/t in last two weeks.

Price Commentaries

RIL’s current price increase comes after a moderate price increase by INR 150/t in the last month of March. In fact, there have been continuous price upticks of pet coke in every month starting from July last year, when the price was INR 5,697/t, resulting into an almost two-fold rise (96.6%) in the past 10 months.

The pet coke price of Nayara Energy continues to be in tune with the RIL price and has nominal difference of INR 36/t in the current month as compared to RIL.

This consistent price rise is supported by demand for pet coke by cement manufacturing companies for road construction and other infrastructural projects. Even though domestic production of pet coke has gradually increased, it is still lower than optimum levels.

Furthermore, lower availability of pet coke in the international market has pushed up the prices. There is also a spurt in imported coal prices which is primarily used as a substitute by cement manufacturers in place of pet coke.