US fuel-grade petcoke market advances on Indian and Chinese demand

Indian demand for petcoke is reported to remain strong due to the desacceleration in Saudi refining and higher interest from China. This is leading to a strengthening of the US fuel-grade petcoke market. However, demand from the cement industry has seen a decline. “Cement demand is very low,” said a Miami-based trader to Platts Coal Trader. “Plants are shutting down for a few months because they have no sales.”

India is the largest market for US fuel-grade petcoke and imported 6Mt from the USA in 2019, compared with 3.1Mt in the previous year, according to US Census data. A total of 11.3Mt of petcoke were imported into India, up from 6.8Mt in 2018.

In China the government plans to allow importers to apply for tariff exemptions for US petcoke, which is expected to waive the 25 per cent tariff implemented last year as part of the US-China trade dispute. While a tariff exemption was introduced more than a year ago, the government had not responded to such applications. The relaxation was in response to a slowdown in Chinese oil refining due to the coronavirus.