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Tuesday, September 9, 2008

News. Chinese Coke Market Under Pressure

Extracted from SteelGuru:
Chinese coke market under pressure
According to Securities Times, sales of coking sector have been pinched by production suspension and limitation of some steel mills since July. Industry experts analyzed that coke price will further move downward in coming future dampened by sluggish demand.
Mr Zhang Bochun secretary general of Hebei Coke & Chemical Industry Association said that in the first half of the year, coking industry in Hebei province witnessed sound development with rising price, which was a guarantee of certain profit for coking plants. However, things changed abruptly since July with a number of steel mills' ceasing and limiting moves in production.
He said that "As it went into August, many coking plants pushed down prices by CNY 100 per tonne. Shanxi, Hebei and Shandong consequently raised the Ensuring Price by Limiting Output measure, but still can not lower the declining trend.”
According to an analyst in the industry, as steel mills expect a further fall in coking price in the future and seem unwilling to increase their inventory but consume the held stock, the trading market will unlikely appear active in spite of lowered price.
As learned, a move of lowering purchase price has been launched by south China steel mills since August 15th with an extent of CNY 150 per tonne for resource from local market. What's more, some with comparatively higher inventory have cut coke purchase price for two times since earlier August.

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