The low price of coal hovers, and the coal market is "weak in both supply and demand". The side effect of its continuous downturn finally extends to railway transportation.
The National Development and Reform Commission recently disclosed that in June, 140 million tons of railway coal was shipped nationwide, down 12% year on year. From January to June, 910 million tons of coal were shipped, down 11.2%. From January to June, the national coal output was 1.63 billion tons, down 9.7% year on year.
"On the one hand, the state has successively introduced policies and measures to resolve the overcapacity of coal. In particular, many illegal coal mines have been closed, which directly affects the output of raw coal; on the other hand, the decline of raw coal production is related to the decline of market demand. In addition, the decline of raw coal consumption in thermal power generation and coking production is also the main reason for the decline of coal production in the first half of the year." Wang Xingyan, Institute of Raw Material Industry of CCID Research Institute, said.
At the same time, the coal production enterprises pay more attention to the logistics cost, and the comprehensive logistics cost determines the customers' choice of transportation channels. In the second half of last year, after the Zhunchi Line was opened, the coal in western Inner Mongolia was discharged from the "Zhunchi Line Shuohuang Line Huanghua Port" channel, which was 15 yuan to 17 yuan/ton lower than that from the "Dazhun Line Daqin Line Qinhuangdao Port" channel. Influenced by factors such as short railway transportation distance and low freight, many high-quality coals in western Inner Mongolia are diverted from Daqin Line to Shuohuang Line, resulting in a rapid increase in the traffic volume of Shuohuang Line and a sharp decline in the traffic volume of Daqin Line.
"The Datong Qinhuangdao Railway was overloaded before, but now it should be said that there is still some spare power." A staff member of Qinhuangdao Port told the Chinese Times.
In the market competition, the shipping role and status of "Zhunchi Line - Shuohuang Line - Huanghua Port" have been significantly improved, and the focus of coal shipping has gradually shifted from the "big coal transport channel ahead" Daqin Line to the "second big coal transport channel" Shuohuang Line. Affected by this, Qinhuangdao Port, Caofeidian Port and SDIC Jingtang Port saw a significant reduction of 55 million tons of coal shipments year on year. In the first half of this year, Qinhuangdao Port completed a coal throughput of 75 million tons, a year-on-year decrease of 36.7 million tons. However, the coal transport volume of Huanghua Port and Tianjin Port increased significantly. In the first half of the year, the coal transport volume of Huanghua Port increased significantly by 28 million.
However, with the arrival of the peak power consumption in summer, the peak coal consumption has arrived since June, and the downstream demand has increased. The enthusiasm of users to pull coal has also increased accordingly, driving the coastal coal transport gradually busy, and the coal transport volume of northern ports may exceed the first half of the year.
"In the past two months, the main coal producing enterprises are bound to increase the number of sales and shipments. The railway and port transportation will improve significantly, and the coastal coal market will have a long lost scene of both supply and demand. In September and October, the coal consumption is in the slack season. Although the civil electricity is weakening, the economy continues to maintain a stable trend, and the coal demand will not decline significantly. It is expected that the number of coal transported from the north to the south will decrease slightly compared with the same period in the whole year. In the second half of the year, the economy will continue to maintain Stable, the increase of civil electricity will drive the market to be better, and the coal price will continue to rise. By the end of the year, it is estimated that the transaction price of 5500 kcal thermal coal port will exceed 500 yuan/ton, an increase of 130 yuan/ton over the beginning of the year. " Said Wang Yun, an analyst at Qinhuangdao Coal Network.