Vale, the world’s top iron ore miner, has reiterated that its iron ore fines production guidance for 2020 remains at 310-330 million tonnes, according to a post on the website of the China Iron and Steel Association (CISA) on July 1.
The information was shared by Eduardo Bartolomeo, chief executive officer of Vale, and Marcello Spinelli, executive director for ferrous at Vale, during a video call on June 30 with He Wenbo, CISA’s executive chairman.
During the call, the Vale executives reconfirmed that the company has been taking various measures to fight against the COVID-19 pandemic to maintain normal production and safeguard the health of staff. Thus, Vale has no intention of revising down its iron ore production guidance for 2020. Moreover, the miner’s target of lifting annual iron ore capacity to 400 mn t by 2022 is also unchanged.
Despite market concerns about Brazilian iron ore availability for 2020 due to the fast spread of the pandemic in Brazil, Vale had offered several reassurances over the past few months that its production guidance was unchanged.
The most recent was when Vale announced it had received official approval to reopen its Itabira iron ore mining complex in Minas Gerais state in Southeast Brazil on June 17. Prior to this, operations there had been halted from June 5 due to pandemic concerns. The impact on production during the near two-week stoppage was lower than 1 mn t, as reported.
For the time being, though prices of imported iron ore in China are hovering at their highest level since last August, they lack momentum to rally further given that domestic steel demand has gradually softened during the rainy and hot weather, Mysteel Global noted.
Mysteel’s SEADEX 62% Fe Australian Fines price, for example, perched above the three-digit level for almost the whole of June, and as of July 1 it stood at $99.45/dmt CFR Qingdao, East China’s Shandong province.
This article has been published under an article exchange agreement between Mysteel Global and SteelMint.
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