First round of coking coal price hikes set to land, demand improvement expectations gradually intensifying, CHINA RISUN GP (01907) "spring market" on the way.

Since 2026, under the grand narrative of "assistance", natural resources and energy commodities have shown significant changes, and the market investment sentiment is high. However, as a secondary energy source, the performance of coke has been relatively flat. But new positive factors seem to have emerged, as GMTEight noted earlier this month, coke companies proposed the first round of price increases, with an increase of 50 yuan/ton for wet quenched coke and 55 yuan/ton for dry quenched coke. It is undeniable that after this round of price increases, the future development of coke prices still needs more time to observe. However, with the implementation of domestic environmental protection policies and the increase in domestic demand in the future, the author believes that the performance of related industry sectors is expected to pick up soon, and as the leader in the coke sector, CHINA RISUN GP (01907) naturally deserves closer attention. Looking back at the trend of coke prices last year, weak downstream demand was a key reason for the continuous decline in coke prices in the first half of the year. In the second half of 2025, the "overproduction inspection" policy was introduced, limiting excessive production by coal mining companies, which led to a rise in coal prices and a rebound in coke prices. However, the marginal re-emergence of supply-side reforms is ultimately not enough to support a unilateral rise in coke prices. But on the positive side, downstream demand for coke in 2026 may see some improvement. As an important intermediate link in the black industry chain, coke mainly serves blast furnaces for iron smelting and non-ferrous metal smelting, and it is an important production material for ensuring the steel and non-ferrous heavy industries. Therefore, the recovery of the downstream real estate industry is expected to largely influence the trend of coke prices. Recently, several media outlets reported that regulatory authorities no longer require real estate companies to report the "three red lines" indicators every month, and only some troubled real estate companies need to regularly report core financial data, which may indicate an adjustment to the real estate financing regulation policy that has been in place for five and a half years. It is worth noting that the market has already had some expectations for the recovery of the real estate industry. It is believed that there may be a "once in a decade opportunity" for the real estate sector within the next six months based on factors such as large-scale supply-side clearance and periodic total recovery. In terms of coke, both supply and demand are expected to reach a turning point in 2026, and from a long-term perspective, the current coke prices are still at near five-year lows. The elasticity of coke prices should not be underestimated as the "spring" has been suppressed to the extreme. In addition, from the perspective of sector linkage, investments in the non-ferrous metal and petrochemical industry chains have been increasing since the beginning of the year, which is expected to have a catalytic effect on the discovery of value for coke. Looking at Xuyang Group, as the world's largest independent coke producer, the company's coke supply reached 23.8 million tons in 2025. By the end of the year on December 31, 2025, the first coking furnace of the Xuyang Pingxiang Park's 1.8 million tons coking project was successfully put into operation. Meanwhile, Xuyang's production base in Sulawesi, Indonesia is continuously improving, and the company's international market expansion is progressing smoothly. As an industry leader, Xuyang Group will undoubtedly be the first to benefit from the recovery of the coke industry with its continuously expanding high-quality production capacity. Combined with the recent active trading of Xuyang Group's stock price, it is likely that some funds have already laid the groundwork based on this bottom-level logic.