Planned shiploader maintenance at the port of Corpus Christi, Texas, from 8 May to 22 June should temporarily curb US Gulf coke shipments and squeeze availability, market participants said.
There will be no coke loadings from the port for the 45-day duration of maintenance, a trader said, leaving companies to store coke over that period or move it to other terminals. The port of Corpus Christi did not reply to a request for comment or clarify whether the outage will also affect other dry bulk commodities.
Coke loadings from the port averaged roughly 146,000 metric tonnes (t)/month in January-November 2025, with no loadings in December, according to US customs data. The port then loaded 249,600t and 110,000t in January and February this year.
High-sulphur coke output from the Gulf of Mexico was already set to tighten in recent weeks after a fire at US independent refiner Valero's 380,000 b/d facility in Port Arthur, Texas, in March shut a delayed coking unit and a fire at Mexican state-owned Pemex's 340,000 b/d Olmeca refinery in April damaged one of the towers of its coking unit. Narrower heavy-light crude spreads because of the Middle East war were also expected to cut supply.
Stockpiling during the outage should mean higher availability for coke cargoes after late June.
