At the start of the fourth quarter of 2025, China’s graphite electrode market showed a trend of “general price increase with differentiation”. According to data from Baijia Yingfu, the average market price reached 15,883 yuan/ton at the beginning of October, up 1.03% month-on-month and over 12% year-on-year. There were significant price gaps between products of different specifications: among products with specifications of 300-600 mm, the price of ordinary power electrodes ranged from 14,000 to 15,500 yuan/ton, high-power electrodes from 15,000 to 17,500 yuan/ton, and ultra-high-power electrodes from 15,500 to 18,400 yuan/ton; the price of 700 mm large-size ultra-high-power products exceeded 20,000 yuan/ton, with quotations ranging from 21,000 to 21,900 yuan/ton.

The cost side has become a key driver of price increases: the price of needle coke, a core raw material, has surged sharply. Enterprises such as Jinzhou Petrochemical quoted prices at 32,000 yuan/ton, a 45% increase compared with 2024; the price of petroleum coke rose 6.7% year-on-year, and these two raw materials account for more than 60% of the production cost. At the same time, environmental protection costs have gradually become more prominent. The superimposed impact of domestic energy consumption requirements and the EU carbon tax policy has pushed the proportion of environmental protection costs in the industry from 8% in 2023 to 15%. The dual pressures of cost and environmental protection have jointly consolidated the price floor of graphite electrodes.