Chilean iron ore and steel producer CAP said this week it has been focusing on longs, as it has reorganized its steel production to operate with just one blast furnace.
The company said it is adjusting its industrial processes and workforce, while lowering costs and expenses. It also added it expects a “sustainable growth in long products demand mainly due to the need of grinding media supply to the mining sector.”
As for prices, the company’s steel arm, CAP Acero, is seeing a decline in steel prices, which are nearing $611/mt, as of H1, as opposed to $700/mt in 2014 and $737/mt in 2013.
The mining arm of the group, CAP Mineria, said it expects to increase iron ore shipments in 2015 by 11.4 percent, year-on-year, to 14.3 million mt, from 12.9 million mt a year ago. So far in H1, the company shipped 6.2 million mt of the commodity.
As for H1, about 60 percent of the company’s 6.2 million mt iron ore shipments consisted of pellet feed products, while self-fluxing pellets and DR pellets accounted for other 28 percent share. Sinter feed and lumps shipments accounted, respectively, for 11 and 1 percent of the remaining share, the company said. About 68 percent of CAP Mineria’s shipments went to China. Other top destinations included Chile (8 percent), Japan (9 percent), Bahrain (8 percent) and Korea (6 percent).