SteelMint’s weekly Odisha iron ore fines (Fe 62%) index fell sharply by INR 650/t to INR 5,750/t (ex-mine, including royalty, DMF and NMET). The downtrend in pellet prices along with lower bids quoted by buyers kept offers under pressure.
JSW Steel has cut iron ore fines offers by around INR 900/t against offers last assessed in the beginning of Sep’21. However, offers are valid subject to material availability. Pellet prices in Barbil have corrected by around INR 1,000/t w-o-w.
Confirmed deals:
- Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) sold 80,000 t of iron ore fines (Fe 62.5% indicative) via auction from its Bolani iron ore mines in Odisha on 14 Sept’21. The auction received bids for all the material offered at 6,050-6,100/t (loaded on wagon, including royalty, DMF, NMET and the additional amount mentioned in the MMDR Amendment Act).
- In another deal, a trader booked around 50,000 t fines (Fe 61%) from Odisha-based miner at INR 5,000/t (ex-mines, including royalty, DMF and NMET) this week.
Rationale:
- Both deals were recorded this week and considered as T1 trade after normalization with 50% weightage in the index calculation for Fe 62% fines.
- SteelMint received twelve (12) offers, indicative prices under T2 trade in this publishing window. Seven (07) were taken into consideration and given 50% weightage. To check out SteelMint’s iron ore assessments, pricing methodology and specification documents Click here
- SteelMint’s iron ore lump (5-18mm, Fe 63%) index fell to INR 10,300/t (ex-mines, including royalty, DMF and NMET) – lower by INR 500/t on a weekly basis. No deals were recorded for lumps at this price as sponge players continue to prefer pellets.
Odisha market highlights:
- The Odisha state government has started the second round of mineral block auctions with the announcement of technically qualified bidders currently in place. Sources informed SteelMint that there were seven technically qualified bidders for the Kasia iron ore and dolomite block with the highest bid being put at 95.6%.
- The Orissa Minerals Development Company Ltd. (OMDC) failed to fetch any response for the 14 Sep auction for sale of 62,450 t of screened and crushed iron ore fines and lumps (in the Fe 58%-65% range) from its Bhadrasahi iron and manganese mines in Odisha’s Keonjhar district.
Odisha iron ore prices:
NMDC to auction 218,400 t of iron ore from Chhattisgarh – India’s largest iron ore miner, National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC), has scheduled two iron ore auctions. The first auction is for 151,200 t of Fe 64%-67% grade material from its Bacheli mines, while the second auction will see 67,200 t of Fe 64%-65.5% ore from its Kirandul mines in Chhattisgarh going under the hammer. Both the auctions are scheduled to be held on 24 Sep.
52% of material sold at Goa iron ore e-auction – The Goa government had organised the 26th e-auction for 1.574 mn t of iron ore on 31 Aug. About 0.81 mn t (52% of total) was booked out of the total offered quantity. The auction witnessed limited participation due to the low grade of iron ore offered and weak demand in China on steel production curbs.
NMDC Kumaraswamy auction receives soft response- NMDC conducted an iron ore e-auction on 15 Sep’21 from its Kumarswamy mines at which 196,000 t was booked out of the total quantity of 404,000 t. JSW Steel was the largest buyer at 100,000 t of fines followed by Kirloskar Ferrous at 16,000 t of iron ore lumps. The iron ore lumps (Fe 60.6%) lot was booked at INR 4,681/t (basic, taxes extra).
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