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China’s coal futures on Tuesday recorded their best session since Bejing’s mid-October intervention to cool runaway prices, aided by concerns over tight domestic supply and demand rebounding after the Lunar New Year holidays.
The most-active thermal coal futures on the Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange closed up 10% at 876.8 yuan ($137.81) a tonne on Tuesday, a level last seen on Oct. 29. The contract gained 5% on Monday.
Dalian coking coal jumped 7.6% on Tuesday.
Total coal inventory at major Chinese ports was at 46.88 million tonnes – the lowest in a year – before the holidays started on Jan. 31, data compiled by the China Coal Transportation and Distribution Association showed.
The association has not published the latest data, but traders and analysts said coal inflows from miners to ports were low in the past week due to slow operation and logistics during the holiday break.
As the central government urged the state-owned coal mines to prioritise supply to power plants to avoid another widespread electricity outage, industrial customers grappled with a shortage of coal.
“The futures market is essentially just reflecting the very tight conditions in the physical market. Spot cargoes are very difficult to obtain as most coal production is delivering into longer term contracts,” said Rystad Energy analyst Steve Hulton.
The benchmark spot price of 5,500 kcal thermal coal in northern Chinese ports reached 1,050 yuan a tonne, closing to the unofficial price cap of 1,100 yuan a tonne.
Market participants expect daily coal consumption to pick up as more industrial users are resuming operations after the holiday and cold weather in southern China would boost power demand.
China’s National Meteorological Centre on Tuesday said temperatures in most Chinese regions will be 1-3 degrees Celsius lower than the historical average levels in the next 11-20 days.
But analysts and traders expect the rally of coal prices to be a short-term problem as more coal mines will reopen from the holiday break.
Dennis Ip, head of China energy research at Daiwa Capital Markets, expects spot coal prices to drop to a level below 1,000 yuan a tonne in late-February to March, and then gradually to fall back to 600-700 yuan a tonne level over the second quarter.