Global Petroleum Coke Review & Outlook 2017

Petroleum coke, also known as petcoke or green coke, is one major by-product in oil refining, and it is wildly used as fuel or industrial feedstock. According to SCI, the global petroleum coke capacity was 373 mn t in 2016, slightly slipping from 2015 at 374 mn t. The U.S. took up the first place by 148 mn t capacity, and China took up the second by 121 mn t. Those top two took up over 72% of the total. In 2016, the petroleum coke global output was 140 mn t, and the increase mostly came from China and India, who were taking over the market position of the U.S. in the supply market. The output in Asia reached 58 mn t, ranking first in 2016, and the U.S. ranked second by 57 mn t.

As for the application, the fuel grade petroleum coke ranked first by 60% of the total or over 84 mn t, while the carbon grade ranked second by 40%. The fuel grade petroleum coke output was under average due to the low contribution from China, but in other regions that ratio usually exceeded over 70%, especially in North America that was over 75%.

The consumption of the petroleum coke increases in line with the crude and downstream consumption continuously in the past years, but the supply and demand fundamentals are basically balanced in the consumption structure. In the global market, the high-sulphur petroleum coke takes up large proportion in production, and it is usually used as self-supplied fuel in refineries for power generating, and the rest is exported to developing countries with low environmental protection limits such as China and India. The low-sulphur petroleum coke is mostly used in the steel industry, aluminum industry and silicon industry. In 2016, the aluminum industry used over 63.07 mn t of carbon grade petroleum coke, and over 77.08 mn t of fuel grade petroleum coke was used wildly in power generating, glass, cement, steel and refining industries.

Taking the U.S. for an example, the low-sulphur petroleum coke is usually produced as needle coke feedstock, and the high-sulphur petroleum coke is used in cement industry and export. In the U.S., the emission restrictions is strict on refineries and generators to use high-sulphur petroleum coke as fuel. However, according to consumption data, U.S. refineries use self-produced petroleum coke as fuel by over 65%, and the rest 35% is used for producing carbon products.

According to data, in the world petroleum coke consumption structure, the steel and aluminum industries take up over 45% or 63.07 mn t, the fuel use takes up 33% pr 45.25mn t, the calcium carbide industry takes up 12% or 16.82 mn t, and the feedstock use takes up 10% or 14.01 mn t.

In the large picture of the global petroleum coke industry, the output will increase gradually in line with the growing global refining capacity. The demand in the developed countries will shrink, while that in the developing countries will grow. The global refining capacity increased from 4.27 bn t from 2007 to 2016 by annual average growth rate at 0.81% or 35 mn t/a. It is predicted the future growth will be expectable, and the global refining capacity will reach 5.04 bn t in 2025.

However, the petroleum coke output may increase slower, mostly because of the increasing light oil yield and hydrogenation application. It is predicted that the coking capacity will reach 390 mn t in 2025, and the petroleum coke output will reach 153 mn t, with an estimated operating rate lower than 40%. The output increase will concentrate in Asia, Mid-East and Latin America, as well as the main demand increase.

The high-sulphur drift will become severer in the feedstock crude oil in the future, however, as for the demand, the low-sulphur calcined coke will take the dominant position in the future increment of consumption. Meanwhile, as the two largest emerging economies, China and India both pay great attention on the pollution issue of the petroleum coke for fuel. China issued Air Pollution Prevention Act. in 2016, and India also increased the green energy tax for the same purpose. Therefore, the desulphurization for low-sulphur content will be the industry focus in the future.