With inventories being somewhat depleted lately, coking plants in China have attempted to raise their prices during the past week. Furthermore, local coke mills have been aiming to gain support from higher coking coal prices. As SteelOrbis reported earlier this week, Russian coking coal suppliers have started to test the market with prices $10-15/mt higher than in the previous week. However, as of today mainstream Chinese steelmakers have continued to resist any hike in raw material prices, citing still inadequate margins, and so the attempts of coke producers have failed to yield any results yet. Nevertheless, with local Chinese steelmakers gradually resuming their operations, demand for coke has noticeably increased, and so in the coming week coke prices are expected to edge up slightly.
During the week ending August 5, coke prices in China have moved sideways.
Second-grade coke prices in Tangshan are at RMB 2,260/mt ($335/mt) ex-warehouse, moving sideways compared to July 29, according to SteelOrbis’ data.
|
Product |
Sepcification |
Origin |
RMB/mt |
$/mt |
change（RMB/mt） |
change（$/mt） |
|
Coke |
Second-grade coke |
Hancheng |
2,170 |
322.0 |
- |
- |
|
Zibo |
2,310 |
343 |
- |
- |
||
|
Pingdingshan |
2,230 |
331 |
- |
- |
||
|
Tangshan |
2,260 |
335 |
- |
- |
||
|
Huaibei |
2,230 |
331 |
- |
- |
||
|
Avg |
2,240 |
332 |
- |
- |
||
|
Including 13 percent VAT |
||||||
As of Friday, August 5, coking coal futures prices at Dalian Commodity Exchange (DCE) have decreased by RMB 45.5/mt ($8/mt) over the past week to RMB 2,088/mt ($309/mt), while coke futures prices have settled at RMB 2,814.5/mt ($417/mt), down RMB 7.5/mt ($2/mt) during the same period.
$1 = RMB 6.7496