Australian mining company Rio Tinto has announced that its iron ore subsidiary Hamersley Iron has concluded today the iron ore price negotiations for the contract year commencing 1 April 2008 with China's steelmaker Baosteel.
Accordingly, the Pilbara Blend Fines and Yandicoogina Fines prices agreed by Hamersley have both increased by 79.88 percent, while the price for Pilbara Blend Lump has increased by 96.5 percent.
Based on the agreement, the new prices for Hamersley are US cents 144.66 per dry metric tone unit for Pilbara Blend Fines/Yandicoogina Fines and US cents 201.69 per dry metric tone unit for Pilbara Blend Lump.
Commenting on the agreement, Rio Tinto Iron Ore CE Sam Walsh said, "The agreement builds on the valuation premium for Rio Tinto's Pilbara iron ore businesses, the importance of which is highlighted as we move towards our 320 and 420 million mt per annum goals from our expected capacity of about 200 million mt in 2008."
The new prices will be the benchmark for all Hamersley long term contract sales for 2008-09 and includes its Pilbara Blend product.