According to the statistics provided by Brazil's National Union of the Industry of Extraction of Iron and Base Metals (Sinferbase), in September this year Brazil's iron ore exports amounted to 26.1 million metric tons, rising by 1.1 percent year on year and down 5.8 percent compared to the previous month.
In the first nine months of 2012, Brazilian iron ore exports increased two percent year on year with a total of 213.5 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 90.7 percent, amounting to 193.7 million metric tons, rising also by two percent compared to the corresponding period of 2011.
Brazilian miner Vale's exports of iron ore in September amounted to 24.05 million tons, 1.5 million mt higher compared to August 2011. As for other miners, Samarco exported 1.45 million mt of iron ore in September, falling by 41.3 percent from the same month of last year, while Anglo American reported a 20 percent fall in exports to 524,000 mt in September.
Meanwhile, Brazil's total iron ore and pellet sales to its domestic market amounted to 21.5 milion mt in the January-September period of this year, decreasing 32.6 percent compared to the same period of 2011.