The downward movement of Indian export offers for high grade iron ore fines (with Fe content of 63.5 percent and higher) has gained momentum during the past week, with offers softening by about $3/mt week on week to $53.65/mt CFR China although no significant transaction volumes were reported in the market, traders said on Friday, June 9.
"Neither buyers nor sellers are keen to conclude any fresh transactions. Current offer levels hold negligible margins for exporters, while traders representing Chinese steel mills are largely absent, perceiving that offers are still to bottom out," an Odisha-based miner-exporter said.
"There is a lot of talk in the market of offers touching the next bottom at around $50-52/mt in the short term and this is prompting most aggregating traders to stay away from concluding transactions," the miner-exporter added.
At least two other traders pointed out that the short-term outlook is "very uncertain" as even marginal gains on a few trading days have not been sustained over the full week as Chinese mills "have no appetite to restock".