It is reported that the price of coke continues its increase trend after the Spring Festival in many regions. Analysts believe this round of price increase is resulted from the production cutback and the price hike before the holiday. And the price rise is anticipated to continue until March when most of miners resume their productions, however, the scope of price increase won"t be wide.
Data shows in February 3rd, the price of the second grade metallurgical coke in the East China market posted at CNY 1700 per tonne to CNY 1850 per tonne up by CNY 150 per tonne to CNY 250 per tonne from the earlier January. While in January, Shanxi Coking Association set its January coke guiding price at CNY 1750 per tonne up by CNY 150 per tonne from that of CNY 1600 per tonne in December last year.
According to the analysts, the coking coal supply was tight in Shanxi before the holiday, owing to the fact of many miners suspended or cut their productions, and the tight supply boosted the price of coking coal, which then pushed up the coke price. Meanwhile, the fact of comparative difficult to ship the products during the Spring Festival also contribute to the coke price hike.
For the past two months, coke price has witnessed an increase of 40%. This is mainly because of the warming up demand from the small steel mills" production resumption as the national economic stimulus package starts to effect. But, insiders believe that the space for coke price to further increase is limited since the coking coal production would increase shortly and the transportation capacity would also recover soon as the holiday come to an end.