In the first half of the domestic and overseas coal prices, China’s imported coal fell by more than 10% year-on-year.

The General Administration of Customs said on Sunday that China imported 7049 tons of coal in the first half of the year, a decrease of 11.8% from the same period last year.

Why did the imported coal drop sharply? Lin Boqiang, director of the China Energy Economic Research Center at Xiamen University, said in an interview with a reporter from the "Daily Economic News" that "coking coal prices at home and abroad are the main reason. In the first quarter, China's coal imports have dropped by 26.4% year-on-year."

In the first quarter of this year, the energy economic situation was announced in the first quarter of this year, the National Energy Administration's analysis of coal imports said that due to the inversion of coal prices at home and abroad, the international crude oil prices continued to climb, the situation in West Asia and North Africa is unstable, Japan’s post-disaster reconstruction and emerging economies With the growth in demand for physical products, it is highly probable that international coal prices will continue to fluctuate at high levels during the year, and coal imports will be affected.

According to statistics, due to the continuous rise in international coal prices since February of this year, there is almost no advantage in importing coal compared with domestic coal prices, which has caused the enthusiasm of domestic coal import companies to be frustrated.

Relevant traders believe that the severe floods in Australia raised the price of coal in the first quarter, while Australia’s share of China’s imported coal is relatively large, and this has been affected.

According to a study released by Shanxi Securities on the 11th, the import of coal in May was 13.57 million tons. Although imports from January to May decreased by 17% year-on-year, imports increased by 23% year-on-year in May and increased by 22% from the previous month. According to the cumulative import volume of coal in the first half of the year, the import of coal in June was 13.61 million tons, which was basically the same as in May and was up 12.4% year-on-year.

“According to this analysis, the import volume from May to June is basically the same, and it is continuing to operate at a high level. This is not unrelated to the import tax measures promulgated by the NDRC. Although the taxation measures have not yet been implemented from May to June, the market has already formed It is expected that while the market is closely following expectations, the coal import volume will still increase in the next six months, said the analyst.

The China Coal Industry Association confirmed at the end of June that the Development and Reform Commission is preparing to introduce tax measures to encourage coal imports. The industry currently expects the tax rate to fall from 17% to 13%. At the same time, a brokerage report pointed out that if the tax rate is reduced by 1 percentage point, the cost per ton of imported coal will drop by 9 yuan.

With regard to the year-on-year decline in imports, the industry believes that there is no need to worry too much. "Too much import is not necessarily a good thing. Imports must play a role in effectively supplementing the Chinese market within a certain amount." An industry source introduced.

According to Citigroup's forecast, due to the difficulty of meeting domestic demand for coal production, China's net coal imports will increase by 63% to 200 million tons in 2011.

Coal price iron ore into two Dashan steel enterprises profit margin is less than 3%

“The profit rate of the current steel industry is not yet high in bank interest rates.” Tang, my manager of the Chengdu branch of the company's steel network, said in an interview yesterday that under the dual pressure of rising raw material and fuel prices, the profitability of steel companies is at A very low level.

The domestic steel giant Angang Steel Co., Ltd. released its performance forecast for the first half of this year. It is expected that net profit for the first half of this year will be 220 million yuan, down 92% year-on-year. In the same period last year, Angang Steel's net profit was 2.75 billion yuan.

“The steel market environment has changed. The original fuel price increase was higher than the steel price increase year-on-year. The gains brought by the increase in steel prices are far from making up for the increase in cost caused by the increase in raw fuel prices.” Angang Steel explained the reasons for the sharp drop in performance.

It is reported that the price of coke has now reached 1,850 yuan / ton, and in October last year, the price of coke is less than 1,600 yuan per ton. Due to the sharp increase in the prices of imported iron ore and fuel in the first half of the year, the production and sales costs of large and medium-sized steel companies rose by 20%. The profits of 80 steel companies in the China Iron and Steel Association accounted for 42.8 billion yuan. This also means that the profit rate of product sales is only 2.91%, which is 0.67% lower than the same period of last year, and the total profit realized has dropped by 2% compared with the same period of last year.

Previously, data released by the China Iron and Steel Association showed that from January to April 2011, the national steel industry realized sales of 1.1548 trillion yuan, a profit of 33 billion yuan, and a sales profit rate of 2.86%, which is less than the current one-year period of 3.5%. The deposit interest rate is also far lower than the average profit rate of 6.2% for industrial enterprises across the country. This is the fourth consecutive year that the profitability of the Chinese steel industry has lost to the one-year bank deposit rate.

At the same time, steel production has been steadily climbing. Li Xinchuang, the deputy secretary-general of the China Iron and Steel Association, revealed on July 9 that China's steel production this year is expected to exceed 700 million tons, instead of the previously forecasted 660 million tons. Li Xinchuang predicted that the current rapid growth of steel production will continue at least until next year.

“The steel prices in the first half of this year have been in a tepid state.” Liu Xu, a senior analyst in the steel industry, said in an interview with reporters. However, from the beginning of the year to the present, the price of iron ore is still relatively high.

Liu Xu said that the current steel company's profits are generally low, the company's cost and logistics costs are rising, the increase in electricity prices for steel companies is not a small impact.