During the week ending October 30, prices of imported iron ore in China have continued to indicate downward movement, especially seeing larger declines for Indian origin ore, while transaction activity for imported iron ore has decreased somewhat compared to the previous week and is now on the sluggish side. At the same time, traders' offers of domestic production iron ore in Tangshan and in Liaoning Province have seen larger declines, with transaction activity for domestic iron ore generally being slack.
At present, Indian fine ores of 63.5 percent grade are offered at $93/mt at Qingdao port. Meanwhile, quotations of 66 percent iron ore concentrate in Tangshan stand at $97.9mt and prices of the same material are at $78.3/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.
During the given week, traders have been willing to lower their prices for low Fe content iron ore, especially for Indian ore and domestic production iron ore, with relatively larger price decreases seen for such ores, while smaller decreases have been seen in prices of high Fe content iron ore from Brazil and Australia. Currently, imported iron ore materials at Chinese ports are plentiful, exerting a negative impact on prices of imported ores. Moreover, the off-season for steel consumption is expected to arrive with the cold winter weather and this will put downward pressure on the iron ore market. It is expected that iron ore prices in the Chinese market will continue their downtrend in the coming week.