Recent coke futures price fluctuations, 1909 contract in 2350 yuan/ton above the strong resistance.The author believes that the rising logic of coke since 2016 is coming to an end. Although coke plants still have the appeal of raising the fourth round of coke price, the profit of steel mills is shrinking and coke supply is still high, so coke continues to rise with greater resistance.
Rose higher than other varieties of black
Since 2016, coke prices have risen substantially.From the perspective of futures index, coke futures index rose from 609 yuan/ton to 2,728 yuan/ton in August 2018, with the price rising more than 4 times.From spot prices, the rise is also considerable.Taking rizhao steel's quasi-primary coke purchase price as an example, the ex-factory price of quasi-primary metallurgical coke rose from 680 yuan/ton at the beginning of 2016 to 2645 yuan/ton in August 2018, up by 1965 yuan/ton, or nearly 4 times.Compared with rebar and iron ore, coke saw the biggest increase in 2016-2018 because it was the only black variety that benefited from both coal and steel's supply-side structural reform.
In terms of the industrial chain, the upper reaches of coke are coal mines, the lower reaches are steel mills, and the middle is its coking capacity.In 2016, coal supply-side structural reform pushed up coke costs.In 2017, the steel supply-side structural reform pushed up the downstream profits of coke, making the profits of the steel industry shift to the upstream, again benefiting coke.In 2018, the market once believed that coking itself would face the pattern of cutting capacity, and new logic pushed up the price of coke for three consecutive years.
The uptrend logic is almost over
Since 2016, the rising logic of coke has come to an end, and the contradiction between supply and demand began to accumulate.From the perspective of coal, it is hard to see a situation similar to 2016 when shortage of coking coal drove up the price of coke.
From the perspective of steel industry in 2017, the steel industry supply side after structural reform, blast furnace steelmaking segment profit greatly increased, which makes the coke as important steelmaking raw material, the steel mill profits to the upstream and the, the good but since the second half of 2018, the market for the blast furnace steelmaking link doubts as to whether I will be able to maintain high profits.From the point of view of environmental protection production limit, the environmental protection production limit in 2018 clearly requires that "one size does not fit all", and local governments are required to carry out differentiated peak production according to the actual situation.During the two sessions, the government work report stated that "we will implement policies that give priority to employment, strengthen policy coordination and cooperation, ensure that the economy operates within a reasonable range, and promote sustained and healthy economic and social development."According to the analysis of the profit situation of steel mills, recently due to the decline in steel prices, iron ore prices rose rapidly, steel mills profit further compression, it is difficult for steel mills to continue to coke plant transmission profit.
In terms of coking capacity reduction, although the market has high hopes for coking capacity reduction in 2018, there is actually no "one size fits all" production restriction behavior similar to coal and steel industries.The data shows that since 2018, the utilization rate of coking plants has been kept at a high level, especially the utilization rate of coking plants over 2 million tons, and the supply pressure of coke has not been relieved.Recently, after three consecutive rounds of coke increase, the profit of coking has been further improved, and the probability of economic production restriction in coking plant has decreased.
To sum up, the rise of coke logic has come to an end, the short-term production remains high, steel profits further down, coke futures prices continue to rise resistance is greater.
From my steel web