During the week ending December 25, prices of imported fine iron ore from India in China have mostly continued to indicate slight downtrends, while some prices for Australian lump ore have moved sideways, while transaction activity for imported iron ore has been at decent levels. At the same time, traders' offers of domestic production iron ore in Tangshan have seen declines, while in Liaoning Province have followed a stable trend, while transaction activity for domestic iron ore is generally slack.
At present, Indian fine ores of 63.5 percent grade are offered at $78.3/mt at Qingdao port. Meanwhile, quotations of 66 percent iron ore concentrate in Tangshan stand at $81.6/mt and prices of the same material are at $66.9/mt in Beipiao, Liaoning, both excluding VAT. Prices of domestic production and imported iron ore in China can be viewed in the SteelOrbis price reports section.
Since medium and large scale steelmakers' capacity utilization has been at decent levels, they still need purchase iron ore to keep production. Recently, miners have intentionally cut their delivery volume to avoid continuous declining trend of iron ore prices, resulting in decreases of iron ore inventory at ports. However, imported iron ore prices continue the weak downtrend due to oversupply and comparative slack demand. Meanwhile, steelmakers use less domestic production iron ore, exerting a negative impact on its prices. It is expected that iron ore prices in the Chinese local market will continue be under downward pressures due to sharp declines seen in finished steel and semi-finished steel prices.