Power restriction in southwest China may affect calcined petroleum coke demand

At present, the calcined petroleum coke market, except for low-sulfur coke, has little change in medium-high sulfur petroleum coke. From the perspective of negative material demand, China cancelled subsidies for new energy vehicles at the end of 2022, which had a negative impact on new energy vehicles market demand. It is rumored that battery companies have taken the initiative to sell products to Tesla at reduced prices, and it is normal to conduct electricity to battery positive and negative materials. After the Spring Festival, the signing of negative electrode purchase orders slowed down, affecting the production scheduling cycle of some negative electrode enterprises, so the procurement of calcined petroleum coke decreased. This is not only due to the decline of the heat of the negative electrode material, but also due to the normal market behavior. 

Recently, power companies in Yunnan Province have started emergency peak shifting power rationing, and users in many areas of Guangdong are required to use peak shifting power. This phenomenon has again attracted market attention. Economic recovery driven by industrial and commercial electricity consumption will continue to rise, whether further power rationing remains to be seen. At the same time, the rumors of power restriction also affected negative electrode material manufacturers to a certain extent. A region in Sichuan Province is affected by the power supply in 2022. In order to prevent the development space of regional advantageous industries from being occupied, the government carefully approves the high energy consumption projects such as negative electrode materials. Negative material manufacturers informed that local power limit would affect graphitization capacity. However, most enterprises that have a high proportion of self-production and benefit from the main share of artificial graphite in negative electrode materials still have profit space. Since 2022, in order to further reduce production costs, artificial graphite enterprises such as Kaijin Energy, Pu Tailai and Zhongke Electric have reduced outsourcing processing and improved profitability by building or purchasing graphitization capacity. The impact of electricity restriction on the carbon market, learn more.