Port coal price stabilizes temporarily and may fall next week

Near the Spring Festival, under the influence of negative factors such as the decline of daily consumption of power plants and the imminent clearance of imported coal, port coal prices stopped rising; from Monday, the coal price index stopped rising and stabilized. The author analyzes that due to the combination of favorable and unfavorable factors, and the influence of balance, this week, the market will not immediately turn into a downturn, and the port coal price will not fall sharply, but remain stable.

The positive factors are as follows: 1. Some power plants are still replenishing. Although the inventory of downstream power plants is still at a high level, the average number of days available for coal storage is about 20 days. On the brink of Spring Festival, the daily consumption of power plants has declined slightly, and the demand shows signs of weakening; however, power on, Datang coastal power plants, and some small and medium-sized power plants in Jiangsu are still actively pulling coal to make up the storage, and the north-south route transportation is relatively busy.

2. High quality coal is still in short supply. In January, affected by safety supervision and inspection, Blizzard and other factors, railway shipment decreased, and Bohai port inventory continued to decline. As of yesterday, the coal storage in QinGang has dropped to 4.54 million tons, some high-quality coal types continue to remain in short supply, and cargo phenomena such as ships appear. However, supported by the production and shipping costs of coal mines, the port coal price remains firm, and the price of low sulfur coal is higher than the index by 1-2 CNY/ton; in addition, the port coal price will not fall immediately as the price of mine mouth coal rises. In a short time, traders will not take the initiative to reduce coal prices. 3. The civil electric load is high. With the advent of cold air, the weather in some areas of East and central China has cooled, and the civil power load has increased; especially in Jiangsu, Shanghai and other places, the temperature has dropped significantly, and even snow in some areas, pulling the air conditioning power load up.

Unfavorable factors: 1. Gradually opening up of imported coal. In the new year, the quota of imported coal will be opened soon, and the imported coal will be cleared one after another; some of the imported coal that has been cleared will begin to flow into the coastal coal market. After the long-awaited recovery of imported coal, the warehouse will be replenished strongly after the Spring Festival, which will promote users to reduce the coal transportation volume in the northern port market.

2. Downstream industrial enterprises stop production for holidays. As of yesterday, the daily consumption of six major coastal power plants dropped to 680000 tons; it is expected that by the end of this week, the daily consumption of power plants will drop to 630000-650000 tons. Since the beginning of next week, a large number of foreign trade processing enterprises in coastal areas have been shut down for holidays. When migrant workers return home for the new year, the industrial power load in the South will drop sharply, and the daily consumption of six major power plants in coastal areas is likely to drop to about 600000 tons. At that time, the demand for coal in coastal areas will be weakened, and the enthusiasm of power plants for replenishment will gradually disappear. With the decrease of downstream transportation volume and the initiative of traders, port coal price will inevitably decline.