There is a supply and demand gap for petroleum coke in my country, and market prices will fluctuate and rise in 2021

Petroleum coke is a black block or granular solid coke produced by the cracking and coking of petroleum at 500-550°C. Petroleum coke has an irregular shape. According to its different appearance, petroleum coke can be divided into sponge coke, powder coke, honeycomb coke and needle coke. The higher the sulfur content of petroleum coke, the lower its quality. According to different sulfur contents, petroleum coke is divided into high-sulfur coke, medium-sulfur coke and low-sulfur coke. In recent years, with the increasingly strict environmental protection supervision and the optimization of production process, low-sulfur coke Sulfur coke has become the mainstream product of my country’s petroleum coke industry.

Petroleum coke can be used to make graphite electrodes, aluminum smelting anodes, anode arcs, etc., and is mainly used in metal smelting, chemical production, graphite manufacturing and other fields. According to the “2022-2026 Petroleum Coke Industry Venture Investment Situation and Investment and Financing Strategy Guidelines Report released by the Industrial Research Center, my country It is the world’s largest petroleum coke consumer. In 2021, my country’s petroleum coke consumption will be about 38.2 million tons. In recent years, my country’s downstream consumption of petroleum coke has expanded rapidly. Since domestic production is insufficient to meet market demand, China’s petroleum coke imports are highly dependent. In 2021, my country’s total petroleum coke imports will reach more than 12.8 million tons.

Affected by the COVID-19 epidemic, global petroleum coke production has declined. In 2020, the global petroleum coke industry output was approximately 124.2 million tons, a year-on-year decrease of approximately 8.0%. In the global market, North America is the petcoke supply center, accounting for nearly 50%. In this region, the United States is the largest petcoke producer and exporter. Petroleum coke in the United States is mainly high-sulfur petroleum coke, which is mainly used as fuel in power plants, cement plants, refineries and other industries.

Asia is the world’s main consumer region for petroleum coke. In this region, China and India are the main consumer countries. From the perspective of product market segments, fuel-grade petroleum coke is the main production type of global petroleum coke, accounting for more than 70%, and carbon-grade petroleum coke accounts for about 30%. Different from the international market, my country’s fuel-grade petroleum coke production is relatively low, mainly carbon-grade petroleum coke.

In 2021, my country’s petroleum coke market will overall show an upward trend. Due to the tight supply of petroleum coke resources and good downstream demand, the price of petroleum coke has increased significantly. Specifically, since August 2021, the price of petroleum coke has begun to show a fluctuating growth trend. At the end of August, the market price of petroleum coke was around 2,600 yuan/ton. , an increase of 370 yuan/ton compared with the end of June. In December 2021, the market price of petroleum coke reached a maximum of about 3,490 yuan/ton.
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Petroleum coke-related companies in my country include Sinopec, PetroChina, Hengyi Petrochemical, Huajin Petrochemical, Donghua Energy, Rongsheng Petrochemical, etc. Industry analysts said that my country is the world’s largest consumer of petroleum coke. Since domestic production is insufficient to meet market demand, my country’s petroleum coke market is still Rely on imports. At the same time, petroleum coke has a wide range of downstream applications, and the demand in smelting, chemical industry and other fields is huge and will continue to grow. In the future, there will still be a certain supply and demand gap in my country’s petroleum coke market.