The demand for oil-based needle coke continues to grow, and my country’s industry concentration is relatively low

Needle coke is a high-quality carbon material that appears as a silver-gray porous solid. It has the advantages of low resistivity, good thermal shock resistance, strong oxidation resistance, and small thermal expansion coefficient. It is mainly used in battery negative electrode materials, graphite Electrodes, capacitors, electric furnace steelmaking and other fields. According to different raw materials, needle coke can be divided into oil-based needle coke and coal-based needle coke. Among them, oil-based needle coke products have better quality and are made from petroleum refining products through delayed coking and calcination.

Oil-based needle coke can be divided into raw coke and cooked coke according to different production processes. Raw coke is mainly used to produce various battery anode materials, and cooked coke is mainly used to produce graphite electrodes. At present, my country has formed a complete oil-based needle coke industry chain. The upstream of the industrial chain is mainly petrochemical companies, which mainly provide raw materials such as tar; the midstream is mainly oil-based needle coke companies, responsible for the production of oil-based needle coke; the downstream is mainly in the application field, mainly used in battery anode materials, graphite electrodes, etc. .

Battery anode materials produced from oil-based needle coke as raw materials are mainly used to produce various battery products, such as new energy vehicle power batteries, energy storage batteries, etc. In recent years, the rapid development of the new energy vehicle market has directly promoted the growing demand for power batteries. Currently, my country is the world’s largest power battery market. my country’s power battery shipments will reach 471.54GWh in 2022 and are expected to reach 658.34GWh by 2023. The continuous growth of power battery shipments has promoted the rapid increase in demand for battery anode materials, which in turn has promoted the continuous growth of my country’s oil-based needle coke demand.

According to the “In-depth Market Research and Development Prospects Forecast Report on China’s Oil-Based Needle Coke Industry from 2023 to 2028” released by the Industrial Research Center It shows that the demand for oil-based needle coke continues to grow, prompting the rapid increase in my country’s oil-based needle coke production capacity. In 2022, my country’s needle coke production capacity will be 2.7674 million tons, of which oil-based needle coke production capacity will be 1.5435 million tons. As the demand for oil-based needle coke for battery anode materials continues to grow, it is expected that my country’s oil-based needle coke production capacity will continue to increase in the future.

Industry analysts said that my country’s oil-based needle coke market has huge potential, and many companies have entered the market. Among them, foreign oil-based needle coke companies mainly include Mitsubishi Chemical, Nippon Steel, KOA, Conoco, etc., and domestic oil-based needle coke companies mainly include Yida New Materials, Bora Biotech, Jingyang Technology, Jinzhou Petrochemical, Jinling Petrochemical, etc. Because foreign oil-based needle coke companies started early, they occupy a certain market share in my country’s mid-to-high-end market. my country’s oil-based needle coke enterprises started late, the industry concentration is low, and the technical level is still insufficient compared with foreign enterprises, and they are mainly concentrated in the middle and low-end markets. In order to further seize market share, my country’s oil-based needle coke enterprises continue to increase investment in research and development, gradually improve their technical level, and gradually enhance their market competitiveness.