Since April, the domestic coal tar pitch market has continued its downward trend since March and continued to dive to the bottom. As of May 13, the mainstream transaction prices of domestic medium-temperature coal tar pitch and modified coal tar pitch fell to 2,800 yuan (ton price, the same below) and 3,000 yuan, respectively, a month-on-month decrease of 49% and 48%, compared with 8,000 yuan in December last year. Yuan high points fell by more than 66%, which is a product with a relatively large decline in the coal tar deep processing industry chain. Since coal tar pitch has the largest output ratio in the coal tar deep-processing product series, its trend has strong guidance for the future development of the industry chain, which has aroused strong attention in the industry.
"Coal tar pitch is a relatively important product among deep-processing products. Its continuous diving market has affected the entire industrial chain, but its decline has been far greater than the range of related products upstream and downstream of the industrial chain, and the diving kinetic energy has been fully released. As raw materials stop The decline is stable, the downstream and terminal support is strengthened, and the market's transaction mentality is improving. The market outlook is expected to bottom out and stabilize, and the possibility of a staged rebound cannot be ruled out." Sun Benfeng, a trader in Liaoning, said.
Raw materials stopped falling and stabilized
Statistics from SunSirs show that the operating rate of coke enterprises across the country was around 76% in the first ten days of May, a decrease of 2% from mid-April. The coal tar market has fallen for 6 consecutive weeks, with a continuous decline of 44%, and the largest weekly decline was 20.62%. The decline slowed down in the first ten days of May, and the price stopped falling and stabilized.
"After the coal tar market experienced a round of rapid decline in April, the mainstream transaction prices in most areas have stabilized to 2,700-2,800 yuan in early May. Although there are still 2,550 yuan in Shanxi and 2,250 yuan in Wuhai, Inner Mongolia Such a price, but low-price orders have been difficult to find one after another, and the overall market has gradually stabilized or even recovered." When Sun Benfeng analyzed the main reasons, he believed, "First, the coal tar production of coking enterprises has declined. Second, after the previous coking enterprises With the implementation of the coal tar destocking sales strategy, coke companies generally have low inventories, and high-priced sales have become the current consensus in the industry. Third, after the coal tar market has plunged for more than a month, traders have priority over production companies to sell stocks, and social circulation Inventories have fallen to low levels, and traders are actively entering the market when prices are low.”
The person in charge of a coking company in Inner Mongolia said that the rapid dive of the coal tar market in the early stage has certain elements of speculation by traders. An excessive deep drop will inevitably lead to a phased imbalance between supply and demand in the market, and the rebound of the market is also a reflection of market laws. The stabilization of the coal tar market has played a certain role as a weather vane for the entire downstream industrial chain. It is expected that the recent "downward tide" of deep-processed products is also expected to be restrained.
Downstream support enhancement
Statistics show that as of May 13, the capacity utilization rate of domestic semi-steel tire sample enterprises was 74.70%, a month-on-month increase of 7.01%, and a year-on-year increase of 12.16%; the capacity utilization rate of all-steel tire sample enterprises was 63.89%, a month-on-month increase 12.37%, a year-on-year increase of 3.69%. According to the statistics of the electrolytic aluminum industry, as of the end of April, the domestic electrolytic aluminum production capacity was 45.25 million tons per year (including those that have been built but not put into production), and the operating capacity was close to 41 million tons per year. The national electrolytic aluminum operating rate was about 89%. Increased by 2.9%.
"Coal tar pitch downstream intermediate products and terminal demand have resumed growth. As of May 12, the comprehensive operating rate of domestic coal tar deep processing enterprises has only increased by 1% from the previous month to 47%. The recent demand growth is significantly greater than product supply capacity. The coal tar pitch market after the current sharp decline has formed a positive support. The possibility of a rebound in the market cannot be ruled out, so we can be cautiously optimistic about it.” Shao Huiwen, a senior market commentator, said.
In addition, although the new demand brought by the new energy field is bright, photovoltaics, new energy vehicles, UHV, etc. continue to increase the demand for aluminum, but it is still difficult to make up for the reduction brought by the traditional field. At the same time, from the perspective of the international situation, affected by the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Europe and the United States have strong resistance to Russian aluminum products. In the future, Russian aluminum products will continue to flow into the country. At that time, the import of aluminum ingots may increase significantly year-on-year. The release of electrolytic aluminum production capacity forms a resistance, which in turn affects the upstream raw material market.
The transaction mentality is improving
Since May 15, the quotations of coal tar pitch all over the country have started to move up. Among them, the low-end prices in Wuhai, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang and other places have disappeared, and the transaction price has rebounded to more than 3,000 yuan. In some areas of Sichuan and Shanxi, the quotation even reached 4,000 yuan, and the regional price difference is still large.
Meng Jianjie, marketing manager of Zhengzhou Dayou Gas Co., Ltd., said that only when the market deviates from supply and demand, the regional price difference is too large, and the short-term decline is too large or too fast, can the turning point come. At present, the basic conditions have been met. Although the macro situation is still not supportive, the conditions for a staged rebound have been met. This is also one of the main reasons why traders have actively entered the market at low levels recently. With the expansion of transaction orders, the staged bottoming, stabilization and recovery of the good market is expected to come.
Analyses from industry insiders, based on the background that raw materials have begun to recover from the decline, and on the basis of the full release of coal tar pitch’s early decline momentum, the increase in new supply in a short period of time is not obvious, and the price difference between regions will increase the social impact. Liquidity. Therefore, the market has begun to have a hype mentality, and the effective supply of goods may be delayed from flowing into downstream manufacturers, and the probability of a phased recovery will increase. However, it should also be prevented that short-term hype causes the market to rise inflatedly, downstream demand cannot effectively grow and market costs cannot be smoothly transmitted, and the combined effect will cause the risk of accumulation to be released at any time. (Liu Yongming)
微信扫一扫打赏
