Petroleum Coke · Origin deep dive
Fuel-grade 6.5% S, FOB US Gulf — the seaborne reference
Reference grade; refinery supply steady
Houston, Port Arthur and New Orleans dock loaders fed directly by USGC refinery coker units.
Fuel-grade sponge coke, 6.5% sulphur, 40-60 HGI — the spec the seaborne market prices against.
Supramax and Panamax stems; short barge legs from refinery to anchorage keep load costs low.
Indian and Turkish cement kilns, Chinese glass and calciners when anode demand spills over.
Steady refinery runs year-round; light Q1 dip when USGC turnaround season trims coker output.
Refinery outages, IMO fuel-spec changes and freight spikes on the long India leg.
Sanctions discount — payment friction, buyer pool limited to price-sensitive cement
Taman deep-water terminal aggregates Russian refinery coke railed from the Volga and Urals plants.
Mixed 4-6% sulphur sponge; batch-to-batch variability wider than USGC reference material.
Handysize/Supramax via Bosphorus; payment routed through third-country intermediaries adds days.
Turkish and North African cement groups able to manage compliance and payment friction.
Flow steadiest in summer construction season; winter Bosphorus delays widen the discount.
Sanctions escalation, insurance withdrawal, and buyer-pool shrinkage forcing deeper discounts.
Mid-sulphur; strong pull from Indian cement
Jubail Industrial Port serving Saudi Aramco joint-venture refinery cokers on the Gulf coast.
Mid-sulphur (5-5.5%) sponge coke, consistent single-refinery spec prized by repeat buyers.
Short Supramax hop to West Coast India — the freight edge that defines this origin.
Indian cement belt (Gujarat, Rajasthan) with growing UAE and East African offtake.
Aligned to Indian cement demand — strongest post-monsoon October through March.
New Middle East coker capacity could flip the regional balance and compress the premium.
Deepest discount — quality variability and compliance risk priced in
José (Jose Antonio Anzoátegui) terminal — PDVSA's Orinoco upgrader coke stockpiles.
High-sulphur, high-metals coke with real batch variability — quality risk is priced in.
Sporadic Panamax liftings subject to terminal reliability and compliance screening.
Price-driven Asian cement and power buyers comfortable with OFAC exposure analysis.
No seasonal pattern — cargo availability tracks PDVSA upgrader run-rates and politics.
Sanctions policy swings, terminal outages, and quality claims — the deepest-discount origin for a reason.
Delivered basis — freight over USGC; cement kiln demand
Kandla, Mundra and Navlakhi anchorages — the world's largest pet coke import gateway.
Delivered basket of USGC and Saudi material; CFR quote reflects landed blend economics.
CFR basis — the differential is effectively USGC price plus the Atlantic-to-India freight leg.
Indian cement majors (UltraTech, Shree, Dalmia) burning coke against imported coal parity.
Import pulses post-monsoon; monsoon quarter (Jun-Sep) sees stem deferrals.
Indian import-policy reviews, coal-parity switching, and freight-rate spikes on the long leg.