ICC News: Needle coke market supply has been tight overall in May, which also in turn pushes price up. According to ICC statistics, domestic coal-based needle coke prices are at 6,500-7,500 yuan/mt and petroleum-based needle coke prices are 5,200-5,400 yuan/mt.
Specifically, Baosteel's needle coke production is still on hold this month. According to the person in charge, they are out of stocks now and they are getting calls asking for goods every day; the factory has scheduled for maintenance this month and is expected to resume production on June 15 and it will operate for three months consecutively afterwards; right now, its needle coke market prices have gone up to 6,500 yuan/mt and pitch coke prices are 3,700 yuan/ton.
Needle coke production output at Jinzhou Petrochemical stands low once again this month due to environmental controls. According to the person in charge, it saw huge demand from graphite electrode enterprises, and all 3000 tons of needle coke produced last month have been sold out; they can't keep up with the demand from both the carbon market and anode material market right now; sales prices of needle coke in May are 5,200-5,400 yuan/mt and green coke are 3,500 yuan/mt; the production is expected to recover till late June.
Pingmei Anshan Research Institute of Thermo-Energy's coal needle coke production maintains normal right now. Driven by the high level of raw materials, prices of mature needle coke have reached 7,500 yuan/mt right now and green coke 6,000 yuan/mt. Monthly output of calcined coke for needle coke production is 2,500 tons and green coke is 2,000 tons. According to the person in charge, despite the tight supply of goods, the profit is not satisfactory because of high production cost; for many domestic coal needle coke producers, their willingness to produce didn't improve accordingly along with robust market demand.
C-Chem (Jiangsu) started to resume operation. According to sources from insiders, it may take some time before it can restore to normal level due to the earlier long suspension in production. The factory plans to operate for 5 consecutive months in the second half of the year, with output estimated at 20,000 tons. Product sales on domestic market will be handled by Sojitz JECT Corporation (Beijing).
Supply of imported products is also very tight in May. According to news from Mitsubishi Chemical, due to strong demand from Japan itself and India market, deliveries for new orders won't happen till October.
South Korea's PMC needle coke has best cost performance among imported needle coke currently; their salesperson indicated they don't have supplies till July.
CONTACT US
ICC APP
