Coal Stocks, Futures Joint Up 400 Billion, China Shenhua Rare Trading Limit, When The End Of Tight Coal Supply?

One of the characteristics of commodities is that the trend of price operation is very strong.

On September 9, three major coal futures, namely coking coal, coke and steam coal, reached a new high. Among them, 2201 contract of coking coal broke through 3000 yuan / ton, increasing by 7.21% in the whole day.

A shares of coal plate rose, coal mining index intraday rise is once expanded to 8%.

Even China Shenhua, with a total market value of more than 400 billion yuan, also reported a very rare trading limit on the same day, pushing the market value of the whole coal sector to soar by more than 90 billion yuan.

It should be pointed out that the core of coal stocks is coal price, and the main contradiction of coal price is spot price.

Although through intensive regulation and control of the futures exchange, the overall position and transaction of the market have been significantly reduced, and the futures price of coking coal is also significantly lower than the spot price, but to alleviate the coal price, it is still necessary to "address both the symptoms and the root", such as effectively increasing the market supply.

Liu Huifeng, chief analyst of black series commodities of Donghai futures, told the 21st century economic report on the 9th that the price rise had been mainly affected by the sharp decrease of supply. At present, the market began to gradually enter the state of both supply and demand. "Considering the factors of reducing crude steel production within the year, the demand side may decline significantly, and the market operation logic will also shift from supply to demand side.".

In the first seven months, Mongolia's coal import fell by 40%, and the shortage of supply met with "rigid demand"

The rise of coal price is full of concern, but the 21st century economic report reporters learned that the focus of the current coal market is focused on coking coal, coke is more affected by the rising cost of coking coal.

Liu Huifeng said, "at the end of last year, when the price of coke was 2400 yuan to 2500 yuan per ton, coking enterprises could make a profit of 1000 yuan. Now the price of coke has risen to 3900 yuan, but the profit of coking enterprises is only 100 yuan, or even dozens of yuan."

In contrast, the price rise of steam coal is obviously smaller than that of "double coke" products.

The relationship between supply and demand still plays a major role. At present, the peak season of market consumption has passed. In addition, around July, domestic coal enterprises were encouraged to increase production and supply, so the market expectation was not as tense as that of coking coal.

As far as coking coal is concerned, the focus of the market this year is the import quantity of Mongolian coal.

According to relevant data, in 2020, China will import 72.62 million tons of coking coal, accounting for about 15% of the annual output, and the proportion of coking coal imported by Mongolia and Australia together can account for more than 80%.

This year, due to the epidemic situation in Mongolia, the customs clearance of Mongolian coal has been suspended for many times, and its supply has decreased and uncertainty has increased.

This directly led to the reduction of domestic import volume. In the first seven months of this year, the import volume of coking coal decreased by 42.72% year on year.

"In normal years, the daily import volume is about 4500 vehicles, and this year, there were only 1200 vehicles. The port was once closed due to epidemic factors," Liu Huifeng said.

The conversion of coking coal to steam coal can not be ignored. Since July, the shortage of steam coal supply has led to a sharp rise in the price of steam coal, and the domestic demand for stable supply and price of steam coal has been put forward.

In order to complete the task, local coal enterprises give priority to the supply of steam coal, so part of the coking coal is converted to steam coal, leading to the decline of coking coal.

Taking Henan Province as an example, the local government once required that all coal mines in the province, which can be converted into electricity coal, should not be washed or produced into coking coal.

On the contrary, domestic crude steel output has been in the growth state in the first half of the year, and only in July this year did it realize the first month on month decline. The supply has been greatly reduced, and the superimposed demand has been increased. The price of coking coal has been strongly supported. As the cost of coke in the downstream has increased significantly, the futures and current prices have also followed the upward trend.

However, compared with the futures price, the rise of the spot price of coking coal is more obvious, which can be seen from the price comparison relationship between the futures market and the spot market, and the futures price is always lower than the spot price.

On September 9, the closing price of 2201 contract of coking coal futures was 3050 yuan / ton, 3786 yuan / ton of Liulin medium sulfur main coking coal (converted into the price of futures standard products), and 737 yuan / ton of spot discount futures.

On the same day, the closing price of coke futures 2201 contract was 3787.5 yuan / ton, the trade price of quasi first grade coke in Rizhao Port was 4301 yuan / ton (the price after converting futures standard products), and the futures discount was 514 yuan / ton.

In this regard, Dou Hongzhen, a senior analyst of Yide futures, also believes that under this round of rising cycle, spot is affected earlier than futures, and futures basically belong to follow state.

Transaction and position decline, supply "the most tight period" is about to pass

Although the futures price is in the leading state, the regulation from the exchange level has not stopped. Taking September as an example, DSE has successively launched a series of conventional and unconventional regulatory measures.

On September 2, DCE announced that it would increase the margin level for speculative trading of coking coal and coke futures contracts from 11% to 15%; On September 3, the TAIEX shall not open more than 100 positions in each month's contract of coking coal and coke futures for non members or customers of futures companies.

On September 7, the institute once again adjusted the service charge rates of coking coal and coke related contracts. Taking the main 2201 contract as an example, after the adjustment, the standard of intra day trading procedures rose from 3 / 10000 of the transaction value to 6 / 10000, and the non intra day transaction increased from 1 / 10000 to 6 / 10000 of the transaction amount.

Among them, the increase of service charge and margin level is aimed at increasing the transaction cost and position capital cost of coking coal futures respectively, aiming to cool down the market by means of marketization, which is the conventional regulation and control means of domestic futures market.

Compared with the above two methods, the limit of one-day opening limit is a higher level, which is one of the relatively "unconventional" control measures.

although_the_price_of_coking_coal_futures_continued_to_rise_until_september_9_ , _the_above_regulatory_measures_have_achieved_certain_results_ ._

Taking the coking coal 2201 contract as an example, the trading volume on September 1 was 329000, and by September 9 it had dropped to 159000. During the same period, the position decreased from 240000 to 164000, with the range decrease of 51.7% and 31.67% respectively.

"The decline in the size of transactions and positions can help reduce the heat of the market. At least, at the current high price, market sentiment has become more cautious," said Liu.

It can be said that the regulation at the exchange level has achieved remarkable results.

However, the futures exchange is not omnipotent. The introduction of the above policy is to curb overheated short-term speculative trading, but the market price trend is ultimately determined by the relationship between spot supply and demand.

In other words, alleviating the rise of coking coal price needs "both the symptoms and the symptoms".

Among them, the key is to effectively increase market supply or decrease market demand, so as to achieve the re balance of supply and demand, and then solve the main contradiction of rapid rise in spot prices of coking coal and other varieties.

Some positive signals are beginning to appear.

According to the futures daily news, on September 7, the China Mongolia Intergovernmental Committee on economic, trade and science and technology cooperation held an online meeting. Mongolian Vice Prime Minister amarsaihan proposed to increase the number of coal vehicles passing through the customs clearance at the port of kashun Suhaitu / Ganqimaodu and xibekulun / Ceke, as well as the regulations on the transportation of coal through containers as soon as possible, In order to start the transportation work as soon as possible.

"In the near future, the reduction of crude steel production is accelerating, and the possibility of zero growth throughout the year is great, even beyond the expectation." Liu Huifeng said that at that time, the main logic of leading coking coal operation will also be switched to the demand side.

According to the prediction of SDIC Anxin futures, the supply tension is expected to ease after September. A small increase in the late third quarter of Inner Mongolia coal, as well as a small increase in domestic coal production and resumption of production, as well as hot metal still need to be further reduced on a month on month basis, "the period of the most tight supply of coking coal is about to pass.".

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