According to the statistics provided by Brazil's National Union of the Industry of Extraction of Iron and Base Metals (Sinferbase), in October this year Brazil's iron ore exports amounted to 26.9 million metric tons, rising by 22.5 percent year on year and up three percent compared to the previous month.
In the first 10 months of 2012, Brazilian iron ore exports increased 5.9 percent year on year with a total of 238 million metric tons. Major domestic miner Vale's share in Brazil's total iron ore exports in the first nine months of this year reached 87.8 percent, amounting to 218 million metric tons, rising by 4.3 percent compared to the corresponding period of 2011.
Brazilian miner Vale's exports of iron ore in October amounted to 24.2 million tons, 26.5 million mt higher compared to October 2011. As for other miners, Samarco exported 1.9 million mt of iron ore in September, falling by 22 percent from the same month of last year, while Anglo American reported a 580,000 mt of iron ore exports in October. According to Sinferbase data there is no iron ore exports by Anglo American recorded in the same month of 2011.
Meanwhile, Brazil's total iron ore and pellet sales to its domestic market amounted to 23.65 milion mt in the January-October period of this year, decreasing 29 percent compared to the same period of 2011.