The recent rise in the price of precision seamless steel pipes 42CrMo for hot rolling is primarily due to the following reasons: Firstly, the rapid and significant price decline in the earlier period has led to a certain level of overcorrection and catch-up sentiment in the market, while the basis has rapidly expanded beyond a reasonable range, driving futures prices upward due to expectations of basis correction; secondly, the cumulative output of crude steel in our country for the first 11 months of this year has shown a year-on-year negative growth trend, ensuring the completion of the task not to increase crude steel production year-on-year, and even allowing steel mills to moderately relax production restrictions. The market's expectation for increased demand for coal and coke in the short term has stimulated strong price performance; thirdly, in recent months, the central bank has implemented a devaluation policy to stimulate economic growth, releasing market liquidity, and the market has a relatively optimistic outlook on real estate policies, leading to a certain increase in the prices of related black metal products, including rebars and iron ore.

Additionally, with the market's stricter supervision over coal production safety, the number of coal import vehicles from Mongolia into China has significantly decreased again, further spurring the rise in coking coal prices.

Overall, coke inventory continues to fluctuate around 10 million tons, with neither accumulation nor depletion trends being prominent. Structurally, there remains a trend of inventory shifting from upstream to downstream, but due to the low production start-up rates of blast furnaces at steel mills, the number of days of inventory on hand has risen to a relatively high level compared to the same period last year, resulting in average purchasing enthusiasm for coke. If steel mills relax their production restriction policies in the later period, there may be further inventory replenishment actions. Meanwhile, with the recent rise in futures prices, some spot-futures traders have increased their purchasing enthusiasm, accelerating the consumption of coke inventory at coke plants. Relevant data shows that from December 13 to December 19, the coke inventory at coking plants was 1.30 million tons, down 82.3 thousand tons from the previous week and up 717.4 thousand tons year-on-year; the port coke inventory was 1.648 million tons, up 177 thousand tons from the previous week and down 777 thousand tons year-on-year.

Recent coal tar markets across various regions have seen successive price increases, with market sentiment improving. However, the overall resumption of steel mill production falls short of expectations, and the low demand remains a suppressor on coal tar prices. In the short term, there is a lack of upward momentum for the price of cold-rolled 42CrMo precision steel tubes. It is recommended to maintain a wait-and-see attitude, with a focus on changes in downstream steel mill production.