Recently, the weather in many places in South China continues to be hot, and the peak of power consumption has appeared in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Guangdong and Guangxi, and the coal consumption of power plants continues to rise. According to the latest coal consumption of power plants, the daily coal consumption of key power plants in eight coastal provinces has reached 2.21 million tons, and the available days of some power plants are less than 10 days. Some power plants started the transportation plan, the number of cargo inquiries in northern ports increased, and ships were sent north to rush to transport coal.

Looking back on May, the power group was reluctant to buy more coal in the market because of the high price of coal. On the one hand, we should focus on the long-term association, reduce the quantity of coal purchased in the market, and actively consume the stocks accumulated in the off-season of the Spring Festival; On the other hand, he wrote to the Department in charge, asking the superior to find a way and make policies, and then large-scale procurement after the coal price fell to the psychological level. Though the idea is good, it is unrealistic. First of all, in the case of good demand, coal prices are unlikely to fall sharply; Due to the lack of psychological price, the downstream replenishment has been delayed again and again, resulting in less and less coal storage in the power plant. At present, it has entered the midsummer, and the downstream has not yet put the inventory together! This has brought great difficulties to the work of supply guarantee in the "peak summer". This year, the dog days are long. From July 14 to August 22, the 40 day high temperature and sultry weather has increased the civil electric refrigeration load and coal consumption. Secondly, international coal prices are also rising. Although China has liberalized the import of coal to the maximum extent, but the world is short of coal and there is no quota, the import of coal is hard to obtain. Mongolia, Indonesia and other countries are affected by the epidemic situation, weather and policy factors, and the increase of imported coal is limited; In addition, the rise of international oil prices and the economic recovery of Southeast Asian countries have also promoted the overall rise of international coal prices. It is difficult to stabilize coal prices by relying on imported coal. Thirdly, the demand for coal is strong, and there is no difference between low season and peak season. In previous years, the power plant can use off-season to store more coal and reduce market procurement in peak season. This year, however, the domestic economic recovery is accelerating, and industrial power consumption is strengthening; After May, the maintenance of the power plant units was completed, the power generation was started at full power, the coal demand returned strongly, and the daily consumption remained at a medium and high level. It is expected that the hot demand will continue until the Spring Festival next year, and the coal demand will remain strong. Make a bold assumption. In May and June, the price of coal is not too high. At that time, if the power plant tries its best to pull up the coal, the inventory will be reduced; When demand falls in July and August, coal prices will naturally fall sharply.

At present, the downstream terminal has been slow to inventory and maintain the slow rigid transportation, but the port coal price has not dropped sharply. The main reasons are as follows: 1; In addition, the continuous purchase of cement and chemical industry has boosted the rise of coal price. Therefore, since May, coal prices have not risen sharply, but they can't fall down, and they have been fluctuating at medium and high levels for a long time. Even in the middle of May, the port coal price fell to a low of 840 yuan; However, with the improvement of demand and the shortage of high-quality goods, the coal price has returned to a high level again. 2. High quality production capacity of producing area should be released in accordance with the rules. In recent years, the work of eliminating backward coal production capacity has achieved remarkable results. By the end of last year, there were 1129 coal mines with a production capacity of 148 million tons / year, which were significantly reduced by 45% and 41% compared with the end of 2018. At present, the main high-quality production capacity is concentrated in large and medium-sized state-owned coal mines, and overproduction has been punished, which directly reduces the willingness of coal mines to overproduce, which makes it difficult to adjust the supply strategy of encouraging production to "guarantee supply". 3. The production area did not increase significantly. Taking the first batch of newly approved temporary land for open-pit mines from the end of May to June as an example, some mines are in normal production, not including new production capacity; However, it takes 1-2 months to peel off the soil layer of the newly approved land, and the short-term increment is limited. 4. After May, there are many coal trucks queuing up in the producing area market, which shows the strong demand for coal; Although coal prices have gone up and down, they have always remained at medium and high levels. The coal price of producing area keeps high, which supports the coal price of port to a great extent.

Looking forward to the coal price trend in the future, if the power plant continues to maintain low inventory and adopts slow and rigid transportation; It is expected that coal prices will neither rise nor fall sharply, and will always remain at a medium high level. If the power plant starts to rush transportation next week, the coal price will drop sharply after late August.