According to sources in meager nine days coal stock at China's Qinhuangdao port further dropped 1 million tonnes to 3.77 million tonnes by April 8th down by 52.3% compared with this year's highest level of 7.9 million tonnes. Among the quantity, 3.63 million tonnes are of domestic trade and 138,200 tonnes of foreign trade. In comparison with the downtrend of coal stock, coal price has remained unchanged for seven consecutive weeks. At present, the spot price of high grade mixed coal with 5,800 calorie per kilogram from Datong has stayed with the range of CNY 585 per tonne to CNY 600 per tonne for seven straight weeks.
Mr Wangshuai the chief analyst of a security company said "The increasing demand is one reason for the decline in coal stock, but it's weird that coal price seems to have been firmly fixed. This implies that coal trade is not active. He said that it may be the negative prediction of coal future supply demand relations that has caused the price to stay still. All kinds of statistics show that the resuming rate of small coal mines is rather low almost zero in the first two months in Henan, and only 40% in Shanxi. Price supply will probably exceed demand in the near future.”
Another reason for the decline in coal stock is maintenance of railway from Datong to Qinhuangdao, which begins from 10 am to 1 pm each day, and will end in mid May. It is estimated that 2 million tonne to 3.2 million tonnes of coal transport will be blocked.
Mr Wangshuai the chief analyst of a security company said "The increasing demand is one reason for the decline in coal stock, but it's weird that coal price seems to have been firmly fixed. This implies that coal trade is not active. He said that it may be the negative prediction of coal future supply demand relations that has caused the price to stay still. All kinds of statistics show that the resuming rate of small coal mines is rather low almost zero in the first two months in Henan, and only 40% in Shanxi. Price supply will probably exceed demand in the near future.”
Another reason for the decline in coal stock is maintenance of railway from Datong to Qinhuangdao, which begins from 10 am to 1 pm each day, and will end in mid May. It is estimated that 2 million tonne to 3.2 million tonnes of coal transport will be blocked.