Last week, Mr. Li, the person in charge of a coal company, revealed to reporters that at present, the National Development and Reform Commission not only plans to introduce a coal price integration policy to fully liberalize coal prices, but also does not plan to issue coal ordering and price guidance policies as in previous years. From 2013, the traditional coal trade fair will be cancelled. Subsequently, the reporter learned from the coal power system, and indeed got the news from the National Development and Reform Commission.
"This time, the National Development and Reform Commission is really going to withdraw from coal orders and fully liberalize coal prices."
Last week, Mr. Li, the person in charge of a coal company, revealed to reporters that at present, the National Development and Reform Commission not only plans to introduce a coal price integration policy to fully liberalize coal prices, but also does not plan to issue coal ordering and price guidance policies as in previous years. From 2013, the traditional coal trade fair will be cancelled. Subsequently, the reporter learned from the coal power system, and indeed got the news from the National Development and Reform Commission.
This means that the 16-year coal price dual-track system and the decades-long coal order fair will officially withdraw from the historical stage in 2013, and the coal price will be fully marketized.
Full marketization of coal prices
Since its introduction in 1996, the dual-track system of coal prices has plagued coal-fired power companies, making coal-power conflicts accumulating for 16 years.
The reporter learned that the National Development and Reform Commission not only plans to introduce a coal price integration policy to fully liberalize coal prices, but also does not plan to issue a coal order guidance policy as in previous years. "This time, the National Development and Reform Commission will completely let go and allow both parties to order coal and electricity independently. In terms of price, the key thermal coal will be in line with the market coal, and there will be no more key thermal coal in the future." Mr. Li told reporters above.
Mr. Liu, a senior power expert from a power group, believes that the so-called coal price unification actually means canceling key coal contracts and fully liberalizing coal prices.
Mr. Liu also told reporters that in recent years, the key thermal coal contracts have become less and less meaningful, and to a greater extent are evolving into long-term contracts. Although the National Development and Reform Commission has repeatedly issued temporary price intervention measures to alleviate the power generation caused by rising coal costs. Enterprises lose money, but coal is often not priced quantitatively, and there are a lot of violations such as shoddy charging. The government is under great pressure to regulate coal prices.
Coal order fair officially cancelled
With the full marketization of coal prices, the associated coal trade fair will soon withdraw from the stage of history. The coal ordering fair is a coal ordering model left over from the traditional planned economy period and has been used for decades.
Before the liberalization of coal, the state organizes coal ordering fairs to sign supply and demand contracts every year.
According to the observations made by reporters who participated in the coal order meeting (later renamed the production, transportation and demand meeting) for many years, coal orders are often negotiated before the order meeting is held, and the actual order meeting is often a concentrated game between the two camps of coal and electricity. Yes, the game point between the two sides is often the issue of price, because every year there is a dispute over the price of key thermal coal, and the NDRC has to coordinate and determine the price of thermal coal every year, which makes the NDRC overwhelmed.
"Canceling coal orders will have little impact on thermal coal orders. The transportation capacity is allocated to major coal mines. The NDRC plans to implement online signing in the future, which will save manpower and material resources." Mr. Liu believes.
Although the power system tries to take the opportunity to merge key coals and push coal linkage, but from the current economic situation, it is difficult to implement the coal-electricity linkage plan in the short term.
Coal expert Li Chaolin pointed out that at present, most coal enterprises, facing the sharply increasing coal inventory, the sharply falling coal price, and the sharply deteriorating coal market situation, have proposed that they must adhere to the marketing strategy of "giving profits but not the market", even if they adjust prices, Selling prices are constantly being lowered, and we must do everything possible to keep old customers. We would rather cede profits to customers than to cede the market to competitors.
At the same time, the reporter found that after coal companies have been in the market for several years, they have begun to turn back to soft words and even give gifts to large coal-using power companies.
"The price of electricity has also risen several times in the past two years, and it is relatively concentrated. It is expected that the government will not start the coal-electricity linkage until the coal price has not rebounded." Mr. Liu pointed out, but the government is proposing the marketization of coal prices, and it is expected to be further improved. The current coal-electricity linkage policy.