Raw material prices continued to rise, graphite electrode market stabilized

ICC China Graphite Electrode Price Index (Sep. 09)

This week, the domestic graphite electrode market is generally stable, the situation of low-cost shipment in the market is gradually reduced, and the room for negotiation is not as much as in the early stage.It is reported that affected by the Winter Olympics, steel factories in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei have generally reduced production by 30-40%, blast furnace, converter, furnace are involved. This reduction is preliminarily expected to last until the Spring Festival next year. Before that, hebei region electrode processing enterprises, also due to poor market conditions, about half of the production shutdown. Many mainstream electrode manufacturers have also reduced production since August, and it is expected that the market launch in the later stage will also be reduced.

As of September 09, the mainstream price of UHP450mm specification with 30% needle coke content in the market was 17,500-18,000 yuan/ton, the mainstream price of UHP600mm specification was 21,000-23,000 yuan/ton, and the price of UHP700mm was 27,000-28,000 yuan /ton, down 10,000 yuan/ton.

Raw Materials

This week, the factory price of petroleum coke in Daqing, Fushun and other plants increased by 100 yuan/ton. As of this Thursday, Fushun Petrochemical 1#A petroleum coke quoted 4,400 yuan/ton and low sulfur calcined coke quoted 6,200-6,400 yuan/ton. Recently, due to the continuous rise of prices, the market shipment is not ideal, and the downstream is mainly wait-and-see.

This week, the price of domestic needle coke is still weak and stable. As of this Thursday, the mainstream quotation of domestic coal and oil products in the market is 8,000-11,000 yuan/ton.

Steel Factories

This week, the domestic steel market fluctuated and rose, mainly the scrap price increased slightly, the production cost of electric furnace steel factories increased slightly, and the profit increased significantly. However, Guangdong and southwest areas of the impact of power restrictions is still large, and the pressure of environmental protection and production restriction in Jiangsu has also increased. Several electric furnace steel factories announced maintenance plans in September. As of Thursday, the capacity utilization rate of 92 independent electric furnace steel factories was 68.15%, down 0.79% from last week.

Future Forecast

After the recent rise of raw material market price, it has a certain supporting effect on the production cost of electrodes. The situation of low selling in the market has improved, and there are signs of stopping the decline in prices. Later depending on whether the stock transaction situation of steel factories can improve before the national day, it is expected to be dominated by weak consolidation in the short term, get more latest Graphite news from us.