Graphite electrode prices - Indian exports.

Steelmaking Electrode Prices.

Steelmaking input costs - electrodes - historic price trends

1) Figures above are average monthly fob export [not spot prices] for steelmaking electrodes shipped from India. All prices are expressed in US dollars per metric tonne.

2) The price data is for harmonised system code #854511 which is defined as carbon or graphite electrodes of a kind used for furnaces.

3) Note that latest price points (the last one or two months in particular) may change, as additional customs data becomes available.

Needle coke (produced from petroleum or coal tar) is the major raw material used in the manufacture of ultra-high power (UHP) graphite electrodes. Needle coke is increasingly also used to make lithium-ion batteries for mobile phones and electric vehicles. It is the growth in the demand for needle coke for these newer applications - as well as closure (for environmental reasons) of much graphite electrode production capacity in China during 2017 - that markedly tightened the availability of graphite electrodes for electric steelmaking in late 2017 / early 2018.

Leading world suppliers of graphite electrodes include GrafTech International, Ohio, USA; Graphite India, headquartered in Bengal; Showa Denko Carbon, headquartered in Ridgeville, South Carolina, USA; and Nippon Carbon, which has its HQ Chuo-ku, Tokyo, Japan. Other noteworthy producers also incude HEG based in Delki India; and Tokai Carbon who are located in Tokyo, Japan.