Spot iron ore hits $86.70 per ton

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13 February 2017

Spot price of 62% Fe content ore jumped 4.6% on Friday, touching nearly $87 per dry metric tonne level after data showed imports by China, top consumer of the steelmaking raw material, continued to strengthen in 2017 after hitting an all-time high last year.

China imported 92 million tonnes of iron ore in January, up 12% or just less than 10 million tonnes compared to a year ago. Earlier, the all-time record for monthly Chinese imports in terms of volume was in December 2015 with shipments totaling 96.3 million tonnes. But the price of iron ore fell to below $40 a tonne.

It is heard that miners are pushing up their prices while the traders are not opposing the hike and are buying at the current levels. Contrary, the level of purchase of the domestic mills from the ports is still $2-4 per tonne less than the hiked imported levels.

Experts say that the steel prices are high enough to absorb the iron ore hike though, the long term sustenance of these levels is questionable as demand for steel from various sectors is picking up very slowly.

HRC prices in China were relatively steady through the week at $497.50 per tonne but coking coal dropped $3 per tonne to $ 171-172 per tonne CFR China. There was no change on the Australian side of the coal prices.