Asian Metal visits coking plants in Shijiazhuang

In the morning of 21 April, 2016, analyst Wayne Wang of Steel Raw Materials Department of Asian Metal visited Gaocheng Jinxin Coking and Gaoyi Lima Coking in the afternoon. In the morning of 22 April, he visited New Century coking and Jingxing Mining Bureau Coking. In the afternoon, he visited Xinyue coking.

Gaocheng Jinxin Coking whose coke production capacity is 900,000 tonnes yearly. They mainly produce grade sub-one metallurgical coke and a half of their coke is sold to Tangshan and the rest is exported. Lima coking whose coke production capacity is 600,000 tonnes yearly. They mainly produce grade two metallurgical coke, and they sell to Xinjin and Bazhou. New Century coking plant can produce 600,000 tonnes grade two metallurgical coke yearly and they sell to Bazhou. Jingxing Mining Bureau Coking whose coke production capacity is one million tonnes yearly. They produce grade sub-one and grade two metallurgical coke. They sell coke to Pingshan, Tangshan and Bazhou. Xinyue Coking belong to Shijiazhuang steel plant, whose coke production capacity is 600,000 tons, and all their coke supply to Shijiazhuang steel.

Wayne introduced coke market situation to their salesmen and they discussed the future market together. He also show Asian Metal map service to Manager Li of Gaocheng Jinxin coking. Li said it is very useful for them to doing coke export. Both sides reached cooperation at once.

During the two days market investigation, we learned that demand for coke exceeds the supply, all of those coking plants do not have coke inventory and their buyers wait to purchase currently. But due to environmental protection pressure, all of them reduce production by 10-20%. Now the price of grade two metallurgical coke is RMB760-780/t and grade sub-one metallurgical coke is RMB800-820/t, both ex-works VAT included.

Coking plants in Shijiazhuang are in good sales situation currently. As coking plants’ procurement enthusiasm of the coke is high and the supply of coking coal is a little tight, we expect that the price of coke will increase again in the near future.