During the week ending April 20, metallurgical coke prices in the Chinese domestic market have mostly decreased, while transaction activity in the overall market has been at low-to-medium levels. As of April 20, coke futures contract (1809) offers at Dalian Commodity Exchange closed at RMB 1,840/mt ($293/mt), up $13/mt compared to previous week. Average coke prices in the local Chinese market are presented in the following table.
During the given week, domestic coking plants’ capacity utilization rates have decreased due to environmental protection inspections in eastern and northern China. The big coking plants have been unwilling to sell at lower prices, whereas small coking plants have had to sell at lower prices due to pressure from their high inventories. At the same time, steelmakers’ coke inventories are still at relatively high levels and so they have been reluctant to purchase large volumes of coke, while traders have been willing to buy at lower prices. Meanwhile, coke futures prices at Dalian Commodity Exchange (DCE) rose in the first four trading days of the current week, but declined on April 20, thereby bringing some uncertainty to the coke market. It is expected that coke prices in the Chinese domestic market will move down further in the coming week.
|
Product name |
Specification |
Place of origin |
Price (RMB/mt) |
Price ($/mt) |
Change (March 30) |
|
Coke |
Second grade |
Hancheng, Shaanxi |
1,560 |
248 |
0 |
|
Zibo, Shandong |
1,650 |
262 |
0 |
||
|
Pingdingshan, Henan |
1,830 |
291 |
0 |
||
|
Tangshan |
1,670 |
266 |
0 |
||
|
Huaibei, Anhui |
1,900 |
302 |
0 |
||
|
Average |
1,722 |
274 |
0 |
17 percent VAT is included in all prices and all prices are ex-warehouse.
$1 = RMB 6.29