Imported South African Lump Offers to India Fall Further

Declining spot iron ore prices in China have made imported iron lump offers to India further cost effective.

Kumba lump (Fe 64%) offers are around USD 62-64/MT, CIF Kandla for shipments to arrive in Nov’15. While offers for Assmang lump (Fe 65+) are at USD 66/MT, CIF Kandla for Nov’15 shipments.

A market participant shared that a Gujarat based importer was heard to book some cargoes of South African Kumba lump at USD 62/MT, CIF West Coast of India for Nov’15 deliveries.

Global iron ore prices are constantly witnessing downtrend and have fallen by USD 4/MT, W-o-W. Australian (Fe 62%) fines are today at USD 52.1/MT, CFR China.

Updates of iron ore import vessels to arrive at Kandla Port

A western India based industry participant shared that significant amount of South African imported lump is expected to arrive at Kandla Port in the coming couple of months.

A vessel carrying about 60,000 MT iron ore is expected to arrive at Kandla Port towards the end of this month. A couple of more vessels, panamax and supramax are expected to reach Kandla Port by mid Nov’15 & Dec’15 respectively.

Pellet offers in western India likely to fall further

Falling imported lump offers are constantly pressurizing domestic pellet prices in western India. Jindal SAW pellet offers which have recently noticed reduction of INR 200/MT, might reduce further by another INR 150/MT.

Inspite of lowering the pellet prices to INR 5,150/MT (delivered Kandla), buying interest has not improved significantly, thus in order to compete with the imported ore there are chances that pellet prices might fall further in the near term.