Recently, China's economic operation data for the first half of 2022 were released, with a GDP of 56264.2 billion yuan, of which the added value of the secondary industry, mainly industry, was 22863.6 billion yuan, an increase of 3.2%. As an important raw material for industry, coal has achieved a low level, which has reduced the cost pressure for downstream enterprises.
Since 2022, the supply and demand of coal have been continuously relaxed. From January to April, the total output of raw coal in China was 1.29 billion tons, an increase of 11.1% year on year. While the thermal power generation capacity of power plants above designated size has accumulated 1863.5 billion kwh, with a cumulative year-on-year decrease of 1.8%. From April to may, with the recurrence of domestic epidemic, the daily power consumption once dropped to - 6% - 8% year-on-year.
Affected by the epidemic in the first half of this year, the supply and demand of China's thermal coal market is relatively loose. The 5500k coal price in Qinhuangdao has always remained above 1100 yuan / ton, reaching 1300-1350 yuan / ton in early June.
Since China entered the high-temperature weather in July, the thermal coal has entered the peak consumption season, when the coal price is high. In 2022, the coal price will not rise but fall. The price of 5500k thermal coal dropped from 1255 yuan / ton on July 4 to 1145 yuan / ton at the end of July,
The delivery volume of large coal users is insufficient
In the first half of the year, affected by the epidemic, the production of enterprises was affected by different factors. The prices of products such as metallurgy and building materials in the downstream industries of the major coal users were in a downward trend, resulting in the weak demand and potential supply of non electric coal. Zhu Yuanzhi, a professor of the school of mechanical and material engineering of North China University of technology, believes that the decline in the production of non electric coal enterprises has driven the relaxation of supply and demand, The main reason for the slump of coal prices is that enterprises increase production stoppage to cope with high inventories and weak profits.
Taking the data of 2021 as an example, the total demand for thermal coal in China is about 3.7 billion tons, including 2.26 billion tons of power demand, accounting for 62%, and 1.4 billion tons of non power demand. In the non power demand, except for the heating coal consumption of about 300 million tons, the other 1.1 billion tons are scattered. Among them, the coal consumption of building materials, coal chemical industry and metallurgy in 2021 is about 300 million tons, the coal consumption of smelting industry mainly based on electrolytic aluminum is about 160 million tons, and the coal consumption of civil and other industries is about 260 million tons.
As the largest coal user, the iron and steel industry experienced a market downturn in the first half of the year. The price of iron and steel products continued to fall, and other mineral products also showed a downward trend of different ranges.
The price of port power coal fell, the daily consumption of coastal power plants increased significantly, and the operating rate of steel plants continued to decline month on month. Last week, the market price of 5500 kcal thermal coal in Qinhuangdao port was 1225 yuan / ton (month on month - 1.84%). The spot price of Jingtang Port coking coal (produced in Shanxi) is 2700 yuan / ton (month on month - 6.90%), and the spot price of secondary metallurgical coke (produced in Linfen) is 2280 yuan / ton (month on month - 14.93%). Last week, the average volume of Qinhuangdao port railway was 520000 tons (month on month + 2.76%), the average daily throughput was 560000 tons (month on month + 16.46%), and the average number of ships at Qinhuangdao Port anchorage was 34 (month on month + 0.84%).
In the whole year of 2021, the metallurgical coal used by steel plants totaled 280 million tons, down 3.7% from 2020. Considering that the terminal real estate and manufacturing industry are facing a trend of decline, the policy of "horizontal control of crude steel output" and other production restriction policies are superimposed. The output of pig iron has peaked in 2020 and will continue to decline slightly in the future. Since 2022, pig iron production has recovered slightly, with a year-on-year decrease of about 5% from January to April. However, the downstream continues to be weak, the steel price is weak and stable, and the profit of the steel plant has turned to a small loss since the middle and late May.
Weak demand for coal for power generation
From January to may, China produced 1.81 billion tons of raw coal and imported 96 million tons of coal. The total coal supply increased by 11.5% over the same period last year. At the same time, the demand for thermal power remained weak. In May, the thermal power generation decreased by 3.3% year-on-year,
It is understood that only 12% of the annual electricity demand comes from residential electricity, 15% from service industry and 73% from industry. However, the seasonal fluctuation of residential electricity consumption is large. In winter and summer, the residential power consumption can reach 18% ~ 20% of the total power consumption.
In May 2022, the daily consumption of thermal power in cctd25 provinces showed that due to the epidemic and the decline of export orders, the daily consumption of thermal power decreased by 8% compared with last year. With the gradual rise of the temperature and the centralized resumption of work and production caused by the improvement of the epidemic situation in many places in early June, the power demand continued to rise from June to July. Under the action of the power plant replenishing the storage in advance, the coal supply in the market was tightened in stages.
In the second half of the year, the word "stable" took the lead
Due to the weak purchasing power of the downstream industries for the spot goods and the strong wait-and-see sentiment in the market, the downward pressure on prices continues to increase. The market demand for thermal coal in northern ports is also weak, mainly because the demand for non electric industries is difficult to expand.
In the medium and long term, affected by the environmental protection policy and the "double carbon" target, the coal industry will continue to reduce the use space. For example, the steel plant will continue to reduce the use of long process steelmaking, and more use arc short flow steelmaking; With the continuous deepening of China's new energy (wind energy, photovoltaic, hydropower, etc.) industry, the application rate of the power generation industry will be higher and higher, which will also reduce the utilization rate of coal.
On July 27, the state owned assets supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) organized a special meeting on energy and power supply guarantee for central enterprises to meet the peak and spend the summer. The meeting required relevant central enterprises to take effective measures to effectively improve the supply and guarantee capacity of energy resources.
The national development and Reform Commission issued the notice on the establishment of special work teams to promote the production and supply of coal to relevant provinces, autonomous regions and central energy enterprises, and proposed the goal of "the major coal producing provinces, autonomous regions and central enterprises will spare no effort to tap the potential to expand capacity and supply, release more than 300 million tons of production capacity within the year, and achieve a daily output of more than 12.6 million tons". According to the production increase target, it is expected that the national coal production capacity will be further increased by 200 million tons in 2022, and the coal supply will be sufficient to continue to ensure the demand of downstream enterprises. It can be seen that the coal shortage scenario in the second half of the year will not reappear, and the price will be mainly stable.
