大摩－中国能源市场总结

Coal inventory day back down at 19 days: Because of significant
production cutbacks at the coal mine and the cold weather over the past 1-2
months, domestic spot coal prices have remained relatively firm over the
past month. Against this, several data points as highlighted below support
our view that spot coal prices are likely to remain firm for the next few
weeks, leading to relatively negative sentiment towards the listed IPPs as
the market may have priced in much larger coal price decline: (1) Latest
spot coal prices for the week showing flat coal prices (again) versus last
week, (2) Coal inventory data show steady decline in coal inventory days
back down to 19 days on 16 January, down from 27+ days during 4-30
November 2008, and (C) Specifically on 16-Jan-09, coal supply to power
plants came in at 1.64 million tons, compared to daily usage of 1.91 million
tons, and hence a gap of 0.27 million tons.
• At current pace, coal inventory can drop to 13-14 days by mid-Feb:
Interestingly, coal inventory in absolute terms peaked at 51.64 million days
on 30-Nov, and fell steadily towards 40-45 million by end-Dec, and to 36.55
million tons on 16 Jan-09. This implies on average coal supply deficit of
321,060 tons a day, compared to 270k tons on 16-Jan-09. Looking ahead,
even if we assume daily supply deficit of 300k tons from here until say mid-
March, power plants inventory levels should be run down towards 16.8 days
(32 million tons) on 31-Jan-09, and 13.0 days (24.88 million tons) by 24-
Feb-09. By then, we believe IPPs will most likely need to agree on 2009
contract coal prices or else things could get worse IF coal suppliers are able
to maintain these production cutbacks.