Amidst a sharp rise in pet coke prices especially between Aug-Nov’21, the consumption of the material in India fell sharply by 21% y-o-y to 9.85 mnt during the first nine months of FY’22 (Apr-Dec’21), CoalMint’s assessment showed.
However, consumption in Dec’21 rose by 8.4% m-o-m to 1.06 mnt.
The abnormally high prices throughout 2021 resulted in reduced imports particularly in last six months, affecting the overall consumption by the cement sector.
Further, the leading refinery RIL also consumed the major portion of its pet coke production in its gasification units and offered less quantity in the market for sale.
Notably, Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) under the commerce ministry has allowed pet coke imports for only select industries such as cement, lime kiln, calcium carbide and gasification industries. Further, the annual quota for imports of raw petroleum coke (RPC) has been limited to 1.4 mnt for production of calcined pet coke, and 0.5 mnt for aluminum industries.
Thus, consumption was heavily dependent on domestic production, particularly when prices were high.
Pet coke production rises 21%
The country’s domestic pet coke production, on the other hand, increased sharply to 10.7 mnt in Apr-Dec’21, up by 21% y-o-y. In fact, production touched the levels of pre-Covid year of Apr-Dec’19.
The government’s push for infrastructure projects coupled with higher imported prices resulted in an increase in pet coke production.
Leave a Reply