Coal market in the stage of slow recovery

After the festival, with the return of labor workers, students and enterprises, the industrial power load will increase. It is expected that from the middle of February, the daily consumption of six major coastal power plants will be significantly increased; in the late February, the daily consumption of six major power plants is expected to return to the level of more than 600000 tons. At that time, before the long-term holiday, the negative replenishment of storage; and during the long-term holiday, the enthusiasm of power plants with more coal storage decline will be significantly increased, and the number of ships dispatched will be greatly increased. However, some high-quality and low sulfur coal in the port around Bohai Sea is in short supply. In addition, the shortage of imported coal will promote the price of coal in the port market. 

During the long holiday, the supply and demand of coal market are weak. In order to control the epidemic, the state extended the long Spring Festival holiday from 7 days to 10 days, and some provinces extended the holiday to 17 days. During the long holiday, affected by the shutdown of industrial enterprises in South China, the industrial power load decreased and the daily consumption of power plants decreased significantly. During the long holiday, the average daily consumption of the six coastal power plants decreased significantly, with 41 days of coal storage and availability; the minimum daily consumption was only 370000 tons, about 50000 lower than that during the previous Spring Festival. In the case of weak demand, most of the power plants sent a small number of ships to maintain the rigid haulage of coal in the Bohai Sea port, while the coastal coal transportation maintained weak supply and demand. Although during the festival, the price of coal in the market has increased by 5-7 CNY/ton compared with that before the festival, due to the shortage of resources, the port market has no market price and the trading volume is very small. 

Upstream production and shipment to be resumed. During the festival, affected by the epidemic prevention and control, all provinces and cities have issued documents to postpone the resumption of work of enterprises. In order to reduce the mobility of personnel, the Energy Bureau of the main place of origin requires that no personnel on leave shall be recalled, and the resumption of work of coal mines in the place of origin is blocked. A small number of coal mines in production are mainly based on the railway protection plan and the insurance director's Association. In addition, road transportation and trans provincial automobile transportation are temporarily stopped, and many coal mines need to be reported for backup to resume production. The upstream coal supply is in a phase of tension. During the festival, the shipment volume of Daqin line once dropped to 780000 tons / day, while that of Tanghu line dropped to 50000 tons / day, a sharp drop compared with the previous Spring Festival. During the holiday period, the port trade is dominated by Changxie coal. The port inventory around Bohai Sea is slightly lower than that before the holiday, and the spot resources are still in short supply. Recently, Tongmei, Zhongmei and other large-scale main coal are speeding up the pace of return to work and production, increasing production and transportation volume; however, most traders and coal stations have not yet returned to work, and the transportation volume is very low. 

After the long holiday, coal prices are expected to rise. In terms of origin, coal mines normally produced in the Spring Festival are only allowed to go on the platform, and cross regional sales are not allowed; in addition, coal mines with Spring Festival holidays are delayed to return to work. Even in the second half of the festival, the main coal producing areas and logistics transportation channels are resumed one after another, and the port transfer in volume is difficult to reach the normal level in a short period of time, which will affect to a certain extent the recovery speed of the port inventory around the Bohai Sea and the coal supply after the downstream resumption of production. Recently, the number of customers who came to the port for inquiry increased, and individual traders began to raise their coal prices; however, due to the shortage of spot goods, the trading volume was very small. After the long holiday, driven by the increasing demand, the recovery growth of power plant daily consumption, and the enthusiasm of the downstream hauling, it is expected that the number of coal hauling ships from the Bohai Sea port to the port will increase significantly, which will drive the coal transportation situation to get better and the market coal price will rise slightly.