Commodity Market Report
China coal short-term outlook February 2022
Report summary
The domestic thermal coal market continued to be tight after the Lunar New Year holiday. The QHD price returned to around RMB1,100/t. The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) held a meeting with miners on 9 February to discuss the QHD price. On 25 February, the NDRC issued a notice capping the price for term contracted coal to between RMB570 and RMB770/t. We expect the strengthening intervention will lead to a fall in price in the near term. During the Beijing Winter Olympics, stricter environmental and safety concerns resulted in a lower operation rate of steel mills in North China. Weak demand for coke and coking coal resulted in a price decline until 20 February, when the Olympics concluded. We expect the coking coal price to increase as more blast furnaces return to operation after the Two Sessions conference. Read our report for more information.
Table of contents
- Tight supply vs price cap
- Price fluctuations driven by major but short-term events
- Cold weather underpinned thermal coal demand in February
- Improvement of BOF operation has yet to fully materialise
- Domestic output returned to a high level after the Lunar New Year holiday
- Negative price arbitrage curtailed China’s demand for seaborne thermal products
Tables and charts
This report includes 10 images and tables including:
- Key thermal coal prices: history and forecast (US$/t)
- Hard coking coal price arbitrage at Tangshan steel mill (US$/t nominal)
- Monthly coal-fired power generation (TWh)
- Monthly hydro-power generation (TWh)
- Monthly throughput at Qinhuangdao port (Mt)
- Monthly throughput at Huanghua port (Mt)
- Monthly hot metal production (Mt)
- Monthly metallurgical coke production (Mt)
- Thermal coal supply (Mt)
- Metallurgical coal supply (Mt)
What's included
This report contains:
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