Due to the sluggish steel market, the upstream coal coke industry has also been implicated. On August 26th, the “China Coal Industry Coking Chain Supply and Demand Summit Forum” was held on August 26, and the spot business people from the coal-coke-steel industrial chain Published its views on the situation of the coal market in the second half of this year. According to Feng Guoqing, general manager of Shougang Supply Co., the current supply and demand of coking coal in China has undergone fundamental changes.

Supply exceeds demand, the situation is severe According to reports, the current foreign coking coal cost advantage is obvious, a large number of foreign coal influx into the domestic market, especially in recent years, with Mongolia as the representative of the national coal resource advantages. It is understood that of the 44.66 million tons of coking coal imported into China last year, Mongolian coal accounted for half. With the entry of a large amount of raw coal abroad, the domestic coking coal market has suffered a certain amount of impact.

According to Shougang's data, from January to May of this year, 257 million tons of coking clean coal was produced domestically, 256 million tons of clean coal was used to produce coke, and more than 20 million tons of coking coal was imported abroad. "This year's coking coal business is gloomy. Unless domestic and foreign steel demand increases rapidly, the Chinese coking coal market will continue to experience oversupply for a long time," said Feng Guoqing.

The coal market has a big price cut. "To judge the changes in the coal market, we need to look at changes in the domestic steel industry." Liu Tieniu, deputy general manager of Qingdao Iron and Steel Group, said that in July and August, the average price of steel was reduced by about 450 yuan/ton. However, the price reduction of coal and coke, especially coal, tends to lag behind that of steel. Although the major steel mills are currently inspecting and limiting production, inspections of different scales are generally carried out, but due to the limited production reduction, the market is not effective.

Zhang Chunmao, head of the supply department of Shandong Iron & Steel (Zhangdian Iron & Steel), believes that lower coking coal prices will inevitably drive the price of coke down. It is worth mentioning that, since last year, major domestic steel companies have used low-quality iron ore and low-quality coking coal in order to reduce costs. Now, there are fewer and fewer companies that actually supply primary coke on the market. In addition, the orientation of the national policy is to encourage a large number of imported coal to be purchased from abroad, leading to an increasing proportion of coal in the US coal market in the United States and Mongolia, which is also a significant change.

In August, Shandong's coke dropped 180-200 yuan/ton, and coal injection dropped 110 yuan/ton. At present, about one-fifth of the coal mines in Shandong are already at a loss, and some have even stopped production. "From a microscopic point of view, with the decline in the price of coking coal, coke does have room for price cuts." Zhang Chunmao said.

Chen Tao, deputy general manager of Shandong Huatong Energy Co., Ltd., said that although the hydropower generation decreased during the period close to the rainy season, combined with the overhaul of some of the company's equipment in September, the supply and demand of coking coal may improve, but there is a lack of support for steel and coking plants and coking coal prices. There will be room for decline in the later period, but the magnitude will be smaller than in the first half.