Friday, March 18,
Offers for spot iron ore in China pick up today. Fe 63.5/63 of Indian cargo is being heard quoted at $ 175-176/MT..*
Prices for the steelmaking raw material had fallen by 15% since hitting record highs near $200 a tonne in mid-February as rising raw material cost and slow steel demand turned off top buyer China.
But some Chinese mills are looking at increasing steel exports to the region as production at quake-hit Japan could slow and domestic demand may spike when reconstruction starts.
Inventories of imported iron ore at major Chinese ports fell to 80.4 million tonnes last week after climbing above 81 million tonnes towards the end of February.
According to a trader in Shanghai, “Iron ore buyers have come back because inventory with Chinese steel mills are low and they now need to buy iron ore to sustain themselves. But will they come buy and disappear again which would make the price slide further or will they stay for sometime which will help prices rebound? That is still an unanswered question.”
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