It is reported that domestic coke market runs weak as a whole against the recent economic downturn, which also drags coke price in Eastern China down. On the contrary, coke breeze runs high thanks to the strong demand.

Some coking plant in Linyi region marks up the price, deviating from the mainstream offer in Shandong. The plant owner said with steady purchase of steel mills, a slight increase in coke prices is acceptable.

Steel prices go straight down recently, bringing a serious setback of steel production. The upstream coke market suffers a lot for steel mills become cautious about coke purchasing. Meanwhile, the profit of coking plant, which is compressed by both coking coal and steel prices, further wanes though coke price rides the wave of high-posing coking coal prices in Eastern China up by CNY 10 per tonne to CNY 20 per tonne. For this reason, despite the end of a month is the pricing period of coking plants and steel mills, a lot of coking plants are in a wait-and-see mood and have a bearish outlook.

To conclude, in a short period coke price will weaken but in a limited range in Eastern China. The stability of crude steel production in recent months boosts the demand for coke rigidly. Part of coking plants scales up coke price to ease coking coal purchasing cost, which cannot represent the mainstream price.

(Sourced from MySteel.net)
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