Indian export offers for high grade
iron ore fines (with Fe content of 63.5 percent and higher) have staged a recovery during the past week, rising by $7-8/mt to the range of $117-118/mt CFR China as buyers have returned to the market, traders said on Tuesday, April 3.
According to two Orissa-based miner-exporters, offers had fallen too fast over too short a time span and traders representing Chinese steel mills have returned to the market and started to conclude transactions at the lower levels.
There has been a surge in the number of transactions concluded during the past week even though the volumes in individual transactions have been modest as buyers remain cautious about booking large volumes, expecting a downward correction to set in at current levels, the miner-exporters said.
However, market sources said that the local spot
iron ore fines market was being led by the global futures markets.
The sources said that, during the recent slump, many speculative positions in futures contracts were unwound by traders and they started to take fresh positions, resulting in an upward push on spot prices.
The sources said that local traders and exporters have been unnerved by the high volatility in export offers since beginning of the month and have been finding it very difficult to give quotations.
Indian offers, having fallen to a low of about $110/mt during the middle of March, have recovered to the current levels of $116-117/mt, which are the same as at the beginning of March.
The sharp variation of $7-8/mt during the month of March prevented local miner-exporters from planning production at mines, the sources said.