Total metallurgical coke output among 230 independent coking plants in China fell further by 23,200 tonnes/day or 4% from 2nd February to 562,000 tonnes/day on 6th February, as the plants had trimmed their output owing to coking coal supply disruption because of the novel coronavirus outbreak, according to Mysteel — a China-centric insight and global metal markets intelligence providing company.
On Thursday, average coking capacity utilization rate among the 230 coking plants declined by another 2.6% from 2nd February to 63.2%, and their total coking coal inventories decreased 1.2 million tonnes or 8.9% from last Sunday to 12.7 million tonnes, which will be sufficient for their 16.9 days of consumption on average, or 0.9 day short of that as of 6th February.
Several Chinese coking coal washers and miners have postponed the resumption of their operations by at least one week to no earlier than 9th February because of the ongoing battle against the novel coronavirus. Besides, coking coal delivery via heavy-duty trucks to the coking plants has been subdued under the present circumstances, as reported, though coking coal can still be moved by rail.
Despite lower coke output, coke stocks at the 230 coking plants kept growing by another 183,500 tonnes or 10.5% from 2nd February to 1.9 million tonnes on 6th February, as they were unable to deliver much coke to Chinese steel mills, and coke stocks at the 110 steel mills under Mysteel’s other weekly survey, thus, dipped by 63,500 tonnes or 1.3% from February 2 to 4.6 million tonnes as of February 6.
The existing stocks could support the 110 steel mills for 15.4 days of consumption on average at the present consumption rate, or 0.3 day longer than last Sunday, as steel mills have been cutting down on their iron and steel production amid the lull in the domestic steel demand.
The weak fundamentals in China’s coke market including demand and supply saw Mysteel’s composite coke price remain at Yuan 1,878.3/tonnes ($269.2/t) including the 13% VAT, or the same as on January 22 before the Chinese New Year break, according to Mysteel’s data.
Note: This article has been published under an article exchange agreement between Mysteel Global and SteelMint.
PRICE ASSESSMENTS
Chinese metallurgical coke export prices for the 64% CSR and the 62% CSR grades are assessed at around USD 303.00/MT and USD 290.00/MT FOB China respectively.
Indian metallurgical coke import prices for the 64% CSR and the 62% CSR grades amount to USD 295.00/MT and USD 278.00/MT respectively on CNF India basis.
Currently, India’s domestically produced metallurgical coke prices for the blast furnace grade are hovering at around INR 24,000/MT and INR 23,750/MT in the country’s east and west coast regions respectively.
Source: CoalMint Research
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