Import coal and hydroelectric double impact, power coal market to cool!

In this period, the market price of power coal around Bohai Sea began to fall from yesterday (May 20) after three days of weakness and stability. Think tanks today noted that the decline was not only due to sluggish demand, but also to the double impact of imported coal and hydropower, which is expected to fall at least to the end of the month. Under the circumstance that the market has been speculating about the limitation of imported coal, the imported coal data in April is somewhat unexpected, not only year-on-year and ring-on-year increase, but also the total import volume in the first four months is also increasing year-on-year. According to the big data of Chinese Coal independently developed by think tanks today, China imported 25.299 million tons of coal and lignite in April, up 13.5% year-on-year and 3.3% year-on-year. The cumulative imported coal and lignite in January-April totaled 99.926 million tons, up 1.7% year-on-year.

Moreover, from the tracking data, the heat of imported coal remains unchanged, and the price of imported coal has been rising with the increase of market inquiries, but it still has a great price advantage compared with domestic coal. According to the big data of China Coal from today's think tank, API8 index, which reflects the CIF level of imported coal in South China, converts the latest index price into RMB 539 CNY/ton, up 4 CNY/ton from the previous one. At present, the domestic shipping price is rising slightly. The price of 5-6WT ship form from Bohai Rim Port to South China is about 42 CNY/ton. The market price of 5500 Daka power coal in Bohai harbor is about 615 CNY/ton, so it can be estimated that the arrival price of domestic coal to power plants in South China is about 657 CNY/ton, which is nearly 120 CNY/ton more expensive than the imported coal that can be directly arrived at the plant. Objectively, the price advantage of imported coal is decreasing, but the price advantage of 120 CNY/ton is still attractive enough for coastal coal-fired power plants. They are also actively striving for imported coal from Dora. From the weather point of view, with the arrival of the rainy season, hydropower output is increasing. In April, hydropower output increased by 18.2% year-on-year. Today's think tank tracking monitoring data show that hydropower output is increasing by more than 15%. At present, the second full solar term has entered the summer, and precipitation has increased further. According to the forecast of China Meteorological Administration, the cumulative rainfall in the next 10 days (May 20-29) will be 40-80 mm in Jianghuai, Jiangnan, South China, Eastern Sichuan Basin and Guizhou, 120-180 mm in some areas, and more than 200 mm in South China, which is more than 5-1 times more than that in other years. Overall, think tanks today believe that coal prices have oscillated in a narrow range for more than a month, and that the current round of coal decline is affected by multiple adverse factors, and the decline is likely to exceed the previous range. Power coal of 5500 cards around Bohai Port may fall below 600 CNY/ton!