News

China's coal costs and profitability
RELEASE TIME: 2019-06-27

In 2018, the main business income of the coal industry was 2,266.03 billion yuan, up 5.5% year on year, and the total profit of enterprises above the designated size was 288.82 billion yuan, up 5.2% year on year. The industry believes that this hard-won achievements, and the deepening of supply-side structural reform is inseparable.

It is learned that China's overcapacity problem has been effectively resolved; In the process of deleveraging mainly by means of debt-for-equity swap, the rising momentum of enterprise asset-liability ratio has been checked. The cost reduction measures focusing on policy cost reduction have effectively alleviated the contradiction of high enterprise cost. A number of measures to strengthen weak links to address the lack of internal driving force for industrial development and the slow pace of industrial transformation and upgrading are also being comprehensively promoted.

According to its own powerful national coal mine cost database and combined with the latest prices of major ports and regions, the cost and profit and loss analysis of major representative mining areas in China in May found that the overall profitability of coal sample mining areas was narrower than that of April.

According to the latest data, the profit ratio of the national thermal coal sample mining area in May was 75.0%, 1.7 percentage points narrower than the previous month. The share of profits in the sample coking coal mine was 97.9 per cent in May, up 0.4 percentage points from the previous month. From the cost analysis, the average complete cost of thermal coal and coking coal in May was 193 yuan/ton and 366 yuan/ton respectively, which changed by -0.5% and 0.0% month-on-month respectively.

In terms of thermal coal, the average cost of single calorie in the selected mining areas to reach bohai bay port is 0.086 yuan/big calorie, which is 1.1% lower than that in April. Among them, shendong mining area (shenfu district) becomes the mining area with the lowest cost, and the single card cost of reaching bohai bay port is 0.071 yuan/big card, which is the same month-on-month. Wanli mining area and junge mining area have the highest cost, with the single card cost of 0.093 yuan/large card.

From the perspective of profit and loss analysis, due to the influence of coal quality, production, transportation cost, price and other factors in each mining area, wanli mining area has the lowest profitability among the selected sample mines in May, accounting for 30.1%, which is slightly reduced by 1 percentage point compared with the previous month. Shendong mining area (shenfu district) achieved full profit in May.

In may, the national thermal coal market trend is divided. In fact, since late April, affected by the decline in demand, the port coal prices are basically in the decline channel, the biggest resistance from the origin of coal prices remain firm; In late may, coal prices in producing areas became loose, becoming the last straw that "crushed" port coal prices.

In terms of coking coal, the average cost of tons of coal reaching tangshan in selected mining areas was 990 yuan per ton, up 0.4% compared with April. Among them, the coal cost of reaching tangshan area in fenxi mining area is the lowest, which is 833 yuan/ton, up 0.5% month-on-month. The mining area with the highest cost per ton of coal is wuhai mining area (haibo bay area), which is 1,115 yuan per ton, up 0.3% month-on-month.

From the perspective of profit and loss analysis, among the selected mines in May, wuhai mining area (wuda district) has the lowest profitability, accounting for 67.9%, which is unchanged compared with the previous month. Kailuan mining area, baotou mining area, fenxi mining area, liliu mining area and xishan mining area all made profits in May.

In may, the domestic coking coal market continues to run strong, producing regions such as shanxi coking coal prices up almost every week, to a certain extent, the focal companies strong demand for coking coal, coking coal market said sales of shipment in good condition, shandong area affected by the impact ground pressure accident last year, this year the overall yield is low, ore party that more production or sales, basic no inventory. And the shanxi area also presents the structural strain, partial main coke and the refined coal variety has been relatively scarce.

In June, the port coal price in May first showed a w-type fluctuation, and then fell back with stagflation and went straight down. Entering June, the downstream is still in a state of high inventory and low coal consumption, and only a few terminals and traders purchase on bargain hunting, but the downward speed has slowed down. At present, the domestic thermal coal market is full of news, such as freight, security check and import, etc., which is both positive and negative. However, the situation of tight supply end and sluggish demand end is difficult to change in the short term. In view of the late coal price trend, some industry analysts pointed out that the recent market low calorie coal has a lot of inquiries, low calorie coal prices continue to repair the price difference between 5000 kcal and 5500 kcal, in the background of import events stacking peak season expectations, traders support high sentiment, port prices may have some upward momentum.

Coking coal, near late, coke market, weakness in the factory the coking coal coking enterprise inventory is enough, the recent procurement of coking coal has slowed, affect the ore inventories, ore producers part has increase the price preferential policies to the rest of the party late to market has already reduce the price expectations, short-term weak coking coal market. In terms of coke, at present, the steel market continues to be depressed, the iron ore price continues to be high, and the profit of steel enterprises shrinks. In the case of sufficient coke inventory in the factory, steel enterprises restrict the arrival of some low-quality resources to reduce the raw material inventory cost. Short - term coke market or will remain weak to run.

As of June 20, the price of CCI5500 thermal coal was quoted at 595 yuan/ton, which was 2 yuan/ton lower than the price at the beginning of the month. CCI5000 thermal coal price was 517 yuan/ton, 9 yuan/ton higher than the price at the beginning of the month. Liulin low-sulfur coal was quoted at 1620 yuan per ton, which was flat compared with the price of tons of coal at the beginning of the month. CCI lingshi fertilizer coal was quoted at 1170 yuan/ton, which was flat compared with the price of tons of coal at the beginning of the month.

On the whole, compared with may, June coal enterprises overall profit ratio or stable slightly weak operation.