Overseas Coking Coal Beaches China's Downstream Demand Continues to Weak

As the demand for coke from steel plants continues to soften, the price of domestic coking coal has fallen. At the same time, due to flooding, a large number of high-quality coking coals in Australia, the United States, and other countries have recently taken over the Chinese market. However, due to the difficulty of deployment and the shrinking of domestic demand, the importation of coking coal in the Chinese market is expected to cause both sides to lose.

Australian coal impacts the Chinese market?

Due to the continued weakness in downstream demand, domestic coking coal prices have experienced a general decline. According to the data of the Steel Association, the price of coking coal in the eastern region fell as a whole, and the price of clean coal in Shandong Yanzhou Iron and Steel Group Co., Ltd., an industry representative in the region, has also been reduced by RMB 40/t. It is expected that the domestic coking coal market will behave under shocks in February. the Lord.

“Recently, the domestic coking coal market is very bad,” said a person from the Shanxi General Coal Distribution Co., Ltd., reporting to the “First Financial and Financial Daily”, “We are currently mainly turning thermal coal.”

The person told the newspaper that the demand for coking coal in the upper reaches has shrunk and the prices have dropped in tandem. The prices of various coun- ters in the region have generally dropped from 20 yuan to 40 yuan.

In addition, due to the global economic recession and natural disasters, overseas communicators have also come in at this time.

A coal import trader in Dalian said that due to flooding, a large number of high-quality coking coals from Australia, the United States, and other countries have recently taken over the Chinese market.

The trader said that these coking coals are dominated by high-quality coking coal, but because the accepted prices refer to domestic prices, the profit margin is not ideal. The reason why it was sold to the Chinese market was indeed due to the sluggish international market.

According to the China Coal Group's coal trade experts, Australia's coal export forecast for 2012 will increase by more than 10%. At present, the FOB price of coking coal imported from Australia to Guangzhou Port is approximately US$235/ton, domestic coal companies Xishan Coal (000983.SZ) and Yanzhou Coal (600188.SH) and other coking coals are shipped to the local area and can reach up to 1600. Yuan/ton price.

With no obvious price advantage, the result of the battle between imported coking coal and domestically produced coking coal is that the former is hard to make money, and the latter is also forced to continue to cut prices, thus falling into a situation where both sides lose out.

Imported coking coal "not satisfied with soil and water"

Of course, overseas childbearers also face the challenge of “satisfaction” in the domestic market.

Huang Teng told the newspaper that at present, the price of coking coal in Australia and other places has risen rapidly in China, but it is not easy to actually reach a deal. Because of the variety of imported coking coals, whether or not a certain type of coal can be successfully blended with the other coal types of the coke plant to produce the coke that the customer needs will depend on the circumstances.

"If you have never used imported coal to mix coke before, it will be very difficult; for example, you used to use five kinds of domestic coking coal to mix coke. Now you want to replace some of the higher-priced alternative coal with some kind of imported coal. It is not easy to debug successfully," Huang Teng said. "It takes a lot of experimentation to learn the right proportion of several coals."

In previous years, domestic manufacturers had also imported coking coal in large quantities, but in recent years it has become less and less, because the coke plant did not understand this deployment problem before. It will be difficult for the coal to be deployed after the two parties sign the contract to return the coking coal to the factory, resulting in a loss. Therefore, domestic manufacturers are currently very cautious in importing.

The above-mentioned traders also stated to this newspaper that Chinese buyers also have their own habits when trading - in addition to guaranteeing the successful deployment of imported coking coal, it is also necessary to ensure long-term, adequate supply. "In order to adjust the coke production to change the many links, if you can not guarantee sufficient supply for at least five years, it is difficult to find a buyer." He said.