Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL) has increased petroleum coke price with effect from 1st Sep’20 to INR 7,894/t ex-Jamnagar refinery in Gujarat, over its last month’s price of INR 7,268/t — an increase of INR 626/t.
Nayara Energy (erstwhile Essar Oil) has increased pet coke price to INR 7,920/t ex- Vadinar refinery in Gujarat, over its last month’s price of INR 7,275/t — an increase of INR 645/t.
Mangalore Refinery & Petrochemicals Ltd. (MRPL) has increased pet coke price for road supplies to INR 7,290/t from INR 6,890/t of last month — an increase of INR 400/t.
MRPL has also increased its pet coke price for supply by railway rakes to INR 6,990/t from INR 6,590/t of last month — an increase of INR 400/t.
Price Commentaries
RIL’s current price increase follows two consecutive hikes of INR 1,050/t and INR 518/t in the previous months of August and July. Earlier in May this year, however, RIL had substantially decreased its price by INR 1,223/t followed by a moderate reduction of INR 195/t in June.
MRPL has maintained its typical price difference of INR 300/t between its road supplies and rail supplies, which is the approximate expenditure incurred by a customer for transporting the purchased material to rake loading area from the company’s pet coke-producing refinery in Mangaluru, Karnataka.
MRPL’s monthly pet coke production has now gradually increased to around 70 kilotons from much lower levels since April this year. The company’s refinery was operating at reduced crude throughput due to the slump in overall demand amid the present pandemic.
Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. (IOC), the country’s second-largest pet coke producer, is yet to revise pet coke prices from its various refineries.
Current Market Scenario
India’s domestic demand for pet coke has increased gradually after certain relaxations have been provided during the recent months as part of the graded lifting of Covid-19 lockdown restrictions.
With the steady resumption of infrastructural activities, the demand for cement has gone up, in turn driving the demand for pet coke, which is mostly used in cement kilns. Several major cement plants have already increased their production levels to over 50-60% and are further ramping up outputs in line with the further easing of governmental curbs under “Unlock 4.0”.
Even as cement manufacturers are actively scaling up production operations and thus limping back to normalcy, it would take some more time for pet coke demand to return to the ‘pre-Covid’ levels. This, however, clearly depends on flattening the Covid-19 infection curve in India.
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