Coal news and updates

RIL rolls over pet coke prices for March loading

March 04: Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), India’s largest petroleum coke producer, has decided not to increase the ex-refinery price of fuel grade petroleum coke for loading in March 2014, an industry source said.

The company had increased the ex-refinery price of pet coke by Rs 150 per ton to Rs 6650 per ton for February loading after keeping it unchanged in January compared to December 2013 prices.

Prior to February 2014, RIL had last increased the price by Rs 200 per ton in November 2013.

“The increase in prices in November was largely on account of some firmness in international markets that saw prices pet coke from the US Gulf coast rising slightly,” the source said, adding, “the overall demand for pet coke in India is more or less constant. There is neither any increase in demand nor any weakness.”

Meanwhile, another source pointed that with larger number of cement companies preferring to use pet coke because of higher calorific value, there is “demand surplus” of pet coke in India or in other words, the demand is higher than the supplies.

RIL had kept October loading prices unchanged after increasing it by Rs 300 per ton for September loading to Rs 6300 per ton. Earlier, it had increased the price by Rs 100 per ton in July from Rs 5900 per ton.

Both in July and in September 2013, the company had increased the prices to off-set the impact of depreciation in Indian currency versus US Dollar.

Though information from other refiners like Essar, HPCL and BORL who generally follow RIL in fixing their pet coke price is not available at present, they are also likely to follow the leader so far as fixing March 2014 loading prices are concerned, sources feel.

RIL had increased prices of its pet coke by Rs 600 per ton between March and November 2013 from a low of Rs 5700 per ton in February 2013.

Earlier, between December 2012 and February 2013, the Indian refiners had rolled over the prices before resorting to increase in March and April 2013. They had cut prices by Rs 400 and Rs 150 per ton in November 2012 and October 2012 respectively.