On February 8, the national development and Reform Commission announced that since February 3, coal production in various regions has rebounded rapidly, and has basically returned to the pre holiday level. The coal storage of national unified dispatching power plants remains above 165 million tons, an increase of more than 40 million tons over the same period last year. With the accelerated recovery of coal production, the demand for coal in superimposed heating season has decreased, and the guarantee capacity of coal supply will be further enhanced.
The national development and Reform Commission said that during the Spring Festival holiday, various regions and central enterprises made efforts to stabilize coal production and supply and scientifically arrange production and sales. The daily output, supply and shipment of coal were higher than the level of the same period of the lunar calendar, which effectively guaranteed the demand for coal for the festival.
On the eve of the Spring Festival holiday, with the overall stability of market supply and demand, China’s coal spot and futures prices rose too fast. The national development and reform commission paid close attention to the changes in coal prices, held a special meeting to deploy the work of stabilizing coal production, supply and price during the Spring Festival, and said that it would further strengthen market price regulation and supervision with relevant departments, severely crack down on illegal price behaviors in the spot and futures markets, and ensure that coal prices operate within a reasonable range.
On February 8, the National Bureau of statistics released data showing that coal prices generally rose in late January 2022 compared with mid January. Among them, the price of ordinary blended coal (4500 kcal) rose by 14.5%, Shanxi blended coal (5000 kcal) rose by 13.3%, Shanxi Youhun (5500 kcal) rose by 11.2%, Datong blended coal (5800 kcal) rose by 11.0%, and coking coal (main coking coal) rose by 1.6%.
“Since the beginning of this year, coal prices have risen rapidly. As of February 7, Qinhuangdao Power Coal q5500 has increased by 26.3% to 1010 yuan / ton, Liulin coking coal has increased by 17.5% to 2680 yuan / ton, and relevant futures prices have also increased to varying degrees.” Citic Securities Company Limited(600030) the chief economist Mingming told the reporter of Securities Daily that the recent rise in coal prices is affected by the rapid rise in energy prices in the peripheral market on the one hand, and is due to the fact that some regions do not include raw coal into the dual control assessment of energy consumption, so the market is optimistic about the demand for coal. It is expected that the subsequent local policies will pay more attention to synergy, the coal supply will be gradually released, and the price will stabilize again.
Wu Qi, executive director of Wuxi Digital Economy Research Institute, told reporters that the change of coal price not only causes a huge cost burden to the coal power industry, but also the irrational trend of coal price is not conducive to the sustainable and healthy operation of coal power enterprises. At the same time, the rise in coal prices will be transmitted to downstream power consumption enterprises, driving the chain price rise of coal related industries and raising the production costs of related industries.
“With the implementation of the policy of ensuring supply and price stability in the coal market, coal prices are expected to gradually fall. In the long run, the establishment of a long-term mechanism for coal market prices will promote coal prices to become more rational.” Wu Qi said.
For the next step of measures to ensure supply and price stability, it is clearly suggested that, on the one hand, we should pay more attention to policy synergy. When formulating policies related to dual control of energy consumption, carbon peak and ensuring supply and price stability, all localities and departments should give more consideration to the spillover of their effects and realize policy synergy; On the other hand, we should expand production, further release high-quality coal production capacity, expand imports, and fundamentally avoid the recurrence of coal and electricity shortage.
Wu Qi believes that, first of all, we should gradually improve the long-term mechanism of coal market price on the basis of continuing to strengthen market price supervision; Secondly, on the premise of ensuring safe production and compliance with environmental protection policies, coal enterprises are encouraged to increase production and supply. From the demand side, the energy resource endowment dominated by coal is difficult to change in the short term. The blind development of “two high” projects should be strictly controlled to improve coal utilization efficiency. In the long run, we should accelerate the construction of a multi-energy, intelligent, efficient and coordinated modern energy system, promote the clean utilization of coal and the multi-type and multi-path supply of new energy, and realize the complementarity of “coal, oil and gas, new energy” and other multi-energy sources.
