From the perspective of raw material type:

The raw materials for artificial graphite anodes are divided into needle coke and petroleum coke.

Generally speaking, petroleum coke yields the highest specific capacity for negative electrodes, reaching up to 353 mAh/g. Therefore, artificial graphite negative electrodes with a specific capacity below 350 mAh/g all use petroleum coke, while those with a specific capacity above 355 mAh/g exclusively use needle coke; electrodes with intermediate specific capacities employ a blend of both types.

Needle coke is classified into coal-based needle coke and oil-based needle coke, depending on the source of the raw materials.

Among them, oil-based needle coke outperforms coal-based needle coke in terms of true density, sulfur content, and volatiles, and is more stable. It exhibits easier graphitization but lower rate performance. Currently, it is mostly used in high-end consumer digital batteries and energy storage applications. For high-end digital devices that have specific requirements for rate performance, an additional carbonization process is added during the final negative electrode manufacturing stage.

Currently, coal-based needle coke is mostly used in the power sector. Low-sulfur petroleum coke is employed in the production of lithium-ion battery anodes and is primarily applied in the power and energy-storage markets.

From the perspective of industry structure:

In terms of needle coke, China is a country rich in coal but relatively poor in oil, and its needle coke production technology started relatively late. As a result, the performance of domestically produced needle coke falls short of that of overseas products, leading to an import dependency of around 35%. In recent years, with advancements in domestic needle coke technology and capacity expansion, the import dependency has dropped to 20%. However, demand for imported oil-based needle coke remains high for high-end negative electrode materials, primarily because the product performance indicators of domestically produced oil-based needle coke—due to the design of domestic production processes—are still inferior to those of overseas products.

Currently, overseas companies led by the U.S. and the U.K. dominate the production of petroleum-based needle coke, with leading enterprises including ConocoPhillips (U.S. and U.K. plants) and Mizushima in Japan. Meanwhile, Japanese and Korean companies are at the forefront of coal-based needle coke production, with key players such as Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Chemical and Mitsubishi Chemical.

Domestic production capacity for both oil-based and coal-based needle coke exceeds 1 million tons. Among the leading oil-based needle coke producers are Shandong Jingyang, Yida New Materials, Jinzhou Petrochemical, and Liaoning Baolai. Prominent coal-based needle coke producers include Shanxi Hongte, Baowu Carbon Materials, Anshan Kaitan, and Fangda Xike.

Regarding petroleum coke, influenced by the quality of crude oil, imported petroleum coke (from Russia) has a sulfur content of around 5%. In contrast, domestic petroleum coke products outperform their overseas counterparts in terms of sulfur content and volatility, and exhibit superior electrochemical performance. Consequently, negative-electrode manufacturers prefer to use domestically produced low-sulfur petroleum coke.

From the supply perspective, domestically produced low-sulfur petroleum coke accounts for roughly 10% of the total petroleum coke output. Affected by the quality of crude oil, the major refineries capable of producing low-sulfur petroleum coke include Daqing, Fushun, Jinxi, and Dagang. Among these, Daqing coke and Fushun coke have sulfur content below 0.5%, making them the highest-quality varieties.

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