Global Needle Coke Market Research Report 2023-Competitive Analysis, Status and Outlook by Type, Downstream Industry, and Geography, Forecast to 2029

Global Needle Coke Market Research Report 2023-Competitive Analysis, Status and Outlook by Type, Downstream Industry, and Geography, Forecast to 2029

Needle coke is a special grade of petroleum coke, which is valued because of its crystal structure, which makes it a good material for making electrodes.

Needle coke is usually produced by a dedicated coker that uses low-sulfur FCC slurry as a raw material. The high aromatic content of the FCC slurry results in the desired needle coke characteristics.

Market Overview:

The latest research study on the global Needle Coke market finds that the global Needle Coke market reached a value of USD 3059.3 million in 2022. It’s expected that the market will achieve USD 4111.48 million by 2028, exhibiting a CAGR of 5.05% during the forecast period.

Influence of COVID-19 Outbreak on Needle Coke Industry Development

Needle coke is the main raw material for electric steel furnaces. In the steel market, every manufacturer expects a crisis in the global steel market due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but COVID-19 has a complicated model for needle coke manufacturers in developing countries. The demand for needle coke has declined due to wider impacts on manufacturing in many regions. The impact of COVID-19 on needle coke manufacturers can be seen in the product portfolio provided by the manufacturers in the global steel market.

As there are more graphite electrode producers in China and India, major producers are facing several problems due to the decline in demand for graphite electrodes in developing countries. Although the drop in the price of needle coke has led to a decline in demand, the flow of goods has become very difficult in the context of a pandemic of imports and exports. Developing countries are also facing the problem of storing graphite electrodes. Lower demand has led to an increase in the demand for storage space, which has increased production costs and led to a decline in the global steel industry.

COVID-19 had the greatest impact on the supply chain as it became difficult to import and export from different countries due to the lockdown in several countries and also lower the demand which has affected the market demand for needle coke products. Many plant implementation has gone on hold as the market in developing countries has a much lower demand for graphite electrodes. Transporting of steel from one industry to another is very difficult because the demand for needle coke used in several processes for the production of steel goods has decreased and has affected the polyurethane industry worldwide.

Limitations

Industry Limitations

Raw materials such as coal tar pitch often require raw material pretreatment, and the pretreatment process is very complicated and costly, which is not conducive to industrial production. Therefore, looking for raw materials that do not require or only need simple pretreatment will greatly help the next step in the expansion of needle coke production. At the same time, exploring low-cost, simple process raw material pretreatment methods is also an effective solution to this problem.

Existing physical disturbance process research is still relatively macro, with few exploration factors, and it is difficult to carry out quantitative control and expand production. Increasing physical disturbance will inevitably require designing and updating equipment, as well as increasing operating costs. Therefore, the quantitative analysis of physical disturbances and the expansion and energy-saving design of reaction equipment should also be the next research direction.

The high temperature in the calcination process, excessive energy consumption, and high requirements for equipment and materials directly lead to an increase in preparation costs. Finding new inhibitors or catalysts, reducing energy consumption and calcination equipment requirements are important directions that researchers need to explore.

Opportunities

Table Industry Opportunities

With the progress in science and technology, investment of companies, there will be more opportunities in needle coke, companies may pay attention to their production technology, keep on innovation and offer more cost effective, high performance and environment friendly products in the future.

There will be more both production capability and consumption in emerging markets. For example, China, India are developing their industries, with the progress of economy and technology, development of downstream demand, there will be more local players entering this market; considering to the strong downstream demand, there will also be a big market potential in the future.

Region Overview:

In global comparison, a significant portion of the revenue was generated in North America (39.68% in 2021).

Company Overview:

Phillips 66 is one of the major players operating in the Needle Coke market, holding a share of 25.14% in 2022.

Phillips 66

Phillips 66 is an energy manufacturing and logistics company. It operates through four segments: Midstream, Chemicals, Refining, and Marketing and Specialties (M&S).

C-Chem CO.,Ltd.

C-Chem produces high value-added products through stable supply of tar raw materials and sells them all over the world. The stable supply of tar from the coke ovens of the Nippon Steel Corporation from the north to Muroran to the south to Oita is the company's rich source of tar.

Segmentation Overview:

By type, Coal-based Needle Coke segment accounted for the largest share of market in 2021.

Coal-based Needle Coke

Needle cokes are used as a primary material for graphite electrodes in electric furnace. Coal-based needle coke is produced from coal tar that appears during coke production. Compared to petroleum-based needle coke, coal-based needle coke has excellent physical properties, such as low co-efficient of thermal expansion and low electric resistance, along with less spalling and less breakage.

Petroleum-based Needle Coke

Petroleum needle coke is a needle-shaped carbon material produced by heating crude petroleum coke (solid carbon obtained from the cracking of heavy oil), and is mainly used as the aggregate of artificial graphite electrodes in the ironmaking industrial electric arc furnace.

Application Overview:

The market's largest segment by application is the segment Graphite Electrode, with a market share of 74.71% in 2021.

Special Carbon Material

3Needle coke has been developed and applied in a variety of new fields due to its excellent performance. Zhong et al. innovatively used needle coke instead of carbon black and added it to the carbon slurry of the perovskite battery to effectively improve the battery power conversion efficiency.

Graphite Electrode

Electric furnace steelmaking has become an important development direction of steelmaking enterprises in recent years due to its advantages of low energy consumption and low pollution emissions. Electric furnace steelmaking uses scrap steel as the main raw material, three-phase alternating current as the power source, and uses the high temperature of the electric current to generate an arc between the graphite electrode and the metal material to heat, melt, and refine the metal. High-power and ultra-high-power graphite electrodes are necessary consumables for electric furnace steelmaking. Graphite electrodes prepared from needle coke have the advantages of high electrical conductivity, small thermal expansion coefficient, and high mechanical strength, which can meet the quality of large-capacity electric arc furnaces. Require. High-power and ultra-high-power graphite electrodes have also become the main application direction of needle coke.

Key Companies in the global Needle Coke market covered in Chapter 3:

GrafTech International
Baowu Steel Group
ENEOS Holdings, Inc.
Fangda Carbon
Phillips 66
POSCO CHEMTECH
Sinosteel Anshan
Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation
CNPC Jinzhou Petrochemical
C-Chem CO.,Ltd.

In Chapter 4 and Chapter 14.2, on the basis of types, the Needle Coke market from 2018 to 2029 is primarily split into:

Coal-based Needle Coke
Petroleum-based Needle Coke

In Chapter 5 and Chapter 14.3, on the basis of Downstream Industry, the Needle Coke market from 2018 to 2029 covers:

Special Carbon Material
Graphite Electrode
Others

Geographically, the detailed analysis of consumption, revenue, market share and growth rate, historic and forecast (2018-2029) of the following regions are covered in Chapter 8 to Chapter 14:

North America (United States, Canada)
Europe (Germany, UK, France, Italy, Spain, Russia, Netherlands, Turkey, Switzerland, Sweden)
Asia Pacific (China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, India, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia)
Latin America (Brazil, Mexico, Argentina)
Middle East & Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, South Africa)