Since the second half of last year, with the decline in coke prices, the coal tar market, which was previously unappreciated, has undergone abrupt changes. Coking companies have focused their attention on the processing of coal tar, a by-product produced during the coking process. In a short period of one year, the country's tar processing projects have come to an end. The surge in demand for raw materials has pushed up the price of coal tar. The price per ton rose from 800 yuan in June to 2,300 yuan. Within three months, the price of coal tar has soared by 200%, and there is still no market. Among them, despite the emergence of a large-scale integrated energy utilization project represented by the processing of 300,000 tons of coal tar in Shanxi Coking, more companies have launched the 'small tar' project with an annual processing volume of 50,000 to 100,000 tons. According to incomplete statistics, in the coal province of Shanxi, 15 tar processing plants with a capacity of 50,000 tons or less were launched. As enterprises flocked to the market, raw materials were tightened. Most of the tar processing companies waited for purchases, and four companies started buying new products. Some companies newly started equipment and began to stop production. This is similar to the 'small coke oven' of 600,000 tons that had swarmed in the past!
There are more than similar. As early as when the coke market began to heat up in 2002, some experts had issued the same appeal, but in the face of powerful interests, these appeals were eventually overwhelmed by the vigorous construction boom of many companies. However, the rapid expansion of coke production capacity in the country has caused a serious oversupply in the coke market, which has caused coke companies to face an embarrassing situation of total loss last year. At this time, we heard another expert's urgent appeal that the coal tar processing project has begun to show signs of disorderly expansion!
Coal tar processing is a high-tech project. At present, Germany and Japan with the most advanced technologies in the world can already extract more than 220 kinds of products from coal tar. At present, China can only extract more than 40 kinds of products at most. Shanxi Coking, which has already been put into operation, has so far produced only 21 kinds of qualified products. The vast majority of tar processing projects in the country, especially those below 100,000 tons, are limited by the constraints of scale, investment and other conditions, and some of them even can only extract 4 or 5 products. The remaining tar residue is indiscriminate. No wonder some experts sadly said that such processing is simply a waste! This is similar to the situation in which the coke-making enterprises coke-settled and sold coke and put a lot of coke oven gas and coal tar 'point light'.
Just as experts in the coke industry clearly stated that coke ovens can only achieve a total energy utilization of 900,000 tons or more, today's relevant experts estimate that based on technical investment and comprehensive utilization of production facilities, etc., the coal tar processing projects Only when the scale is more than 200,000 tons, can we basically achieve economic operation and meet the requirements of circular economy. Therefore, the situation facing the tar processing enterprises today is the same as that of the coking enterprises in the same year, and they urgently need to integrate resources to increase the overall energy utilization rate.
The conversion from coke indicates that China's coking enterprises, especially most private coking enterprises, are gradually maturing, but if we do not fundamentally abandon the idea of ​​pursuing short-term profits, blindly follow the trend, and disorderly expansion, it is very likely that we will blindly invest in coking enterprises again. The consequences of self-inflicted food.
Do not repeat the mistakes of coke companies and cause excess capacity and suffer "winter"
In the past year of 2005, the entire oil and chemical industry was in a very good situation. Only the coke-producing enterprises suffered from overcapacity due to disorderly expansion and suffered from 'winter'. However, at the moment, coal tar producers have the danger of repeating the mistakes of coke investment.