In 2023, the petroleum coke market will continue to be abundant, the downstream demand support will generally enter the downward consolidation stage, the domestic petroleum coke index will be adjusted frequently, the resource structure will be uneven, and the petroleum coke will continue to decline due to multiple negative factors. After the cold wave, what stage of development will the supply and demand side of the petroleum coke market enter?First, the outlook of the petroleum coke market.
From the perspective of 2024, the proposed projects of China's delayed coking unit include the 3 million tons per year delayed coking unit storage and commissioning plan of the second phase of the Guangdong Petrochemical Refining and Chemical Integration Project, and the delayed coking unit of other refineries has not withdrawn or added new operations for the time being, and the domestic delayed coking unit production capacity may continue to increase slightly.
Data**: Longzhong Information.
According to Longzhong information market research, the second quarter of each year is the traditional peak season for the maintenance of delayed coking units in China, so the output of petroleum coke will generally decline from February, and the output will recover from late May. Due to the plant-wide maintenance plan of some refineries in the third quarter, the growth rate of domestic petroleum coke** slowed down slightly, and the monthly output of petroleum coke may decline at the end of the third quarter. In addition, in 2023, there will be less maintenance of domestic refinery units. In terms of main business, 2021 is a big year for unit maintenance, and it is expected that the next centralized unit maintenance** will appear in 2024, so the impact of delayed coking unit maintenance of domestic refineries on output in 2024 may be greater than that in 2023.
2. Outlook for the market demand for petroleum coke.
In 2023, the development of the main downstream areas of petroleum coke shows that the demand for petroleum coke in the traditional carbon market is stable, the consumption of new materials in the market continues to increase, and the demand side market for petroleum coke has entered a new stage of development.
Data**: Longzhong Information.
It is expected that in 2024, the amount of petroleum coke in the fields of prebaked anodes and graphite electrodes will be relatively stable, the use of petroleum coke as fuel in integrated refineries may increase, and there will still be new demand in the field of anode materials and carburizers, but the overall demand growth rate may decline due to the weakening of the market.
In 2024, the apparent consumption of petroleum coke in China may show a slight trend in stability. On the whole, affected by factors such as equipment maintenance, the apparent consumption of petroleum coke in the first half of the year may be significantly better than that in the second half of the year, so the gap between domestic petroleum coke supply and demand in the first half of 2024 may shrink.
3. Outlook for the trend of petroleum coke
Data**: Longzhong Information.
The low-sulfur coke resources are relatively stable, the steel carbon market continues to be weak, the trading load is low, the graphite cathode field is just driven by procurement, and the traditional industry has poor momentum for the rise of low-sulfur coke. The production capacity of the new material market continues to be released, the consumption of low-sulfur coke has increased significantly, and the low-sulfur resources are gradually inclined to the new material market, and it is expected that the low-sulfur ** will be maintained at 2500-3500 yuan tons in 2024.
The fluctuation of trace element indicators has become an increasing impact on the pricing of medium sulfur coke, and the rigid demand support of the domestic aluminum carbon market still exists, and with the release of the production capacity of newly put into production prebaked anode enterprises to continue to increase the demand for medium sulfur coke, there will be a resource competition for prebaked anode and anode in the index goods, which is good for its first increase. The increase in demand in the field of anode filler may be a good boost to the shipment of medium sulfur general cargo petroleum coke, but due to the increase in general cargo resources, the overall adjustment space of petroleum coke is limited, and it is expected that the medium sulfur petroleum coke will be adjusted to 1800-2500 yuan tons.
The domestic high-sulfur petroleum coke market is expected to be slightly weaker, and the domestic high-sulfur coke resources** continue to increase, coupled with the high overlap between imported coke and domestic high-sulfur coke resources, the high-sulfur coke** is relatively abundant. From the perspective of 2024, high-sulfur coke with good trace elements will still be at a relatively high level supported by the demand for carbon for aluminum, and high-sulfur coke with poor trace elements will be mainly used in silicon enterprises and fuel fields except for refineries' own use.