August petroleum coke market performs on a downward trend: Monthly report

ICC News: Domestic petroleum coke market has been broadly on a downward trend in August. Early in the month, the market of major units almost saw an across-board drop in price, while local refineries were offering preferences to large clients in practice despite tranquil situation on the surface.
Crude oil continued to swing downward, with the cap on gasoline and diesel retail price set to post a fourth consecutive decline since July.  Disappointing refined oil market performance suggests there was more room for further drop in terms of coking capacity utilization in the country.
The downward trend continued to deepen later. Major units began to offer favorable terms for large-quantity purchases to downstream users, and local refineries mainly resorted to price cut to promote sales.
Rising profit margin as a result of falling cost of coking on the back of prolonged decline in crude oil gave mild boost to the capacity utilization of coking facilities.
At the end of the month, market contraction slowed down, and the market seemingly appeared to be leveling off although actual transaction situation was not encouraging, particularly for major units and they continued to offer favorable terms for large-quantity purchases to downstream users.
On the low-sulphur petroleum coke market, sales in northeast didn't improve. With high level of inventories, 1# products are sold at prices that they are first paid for by refineries. The closing price for large-quantity purchase reached as low as 1,030-1,150 yuan/mt, according to sources.
On the medium-sulphur petroleum coke front, the sequentially falling rate of operation at local refineries lent support to petroleum coke market of local refineries, particularly some cost-effective refineries which post satisfactory sales. Medium-sulphur petroleum coke market with higher price saw price drop across the board as it was getting close to the price level at local refineries.
On the high-sulphur petroleum coke front, product shipment remained under pressure with the impact of low-price resource from local refineries and imported products as well as tightened environmental protection regulations.
As of Aug 28, prevailing price of 1#A is 1,150-1,300 yuan/mt; 1#B is 1,030-1,150 yuan/mt; 2#A is 1,310 yuan/mt  from Sinopec and 1,150-1,220 yuan/mt from local refineries; 2#B  is 1,130-1,170 yuan/mt from Sinopec and 900-1,000 yuan/mt from local refineries; 3# is 940-1,030 yuan/mt from Sinopec and 730-850 yuan/mt from local refineries; 4#-5# is 650-860 yuan/mt prevailingly from Sinopec.