After the announcement that Australian miner BHP Billiton made last week regarding the completion of the long-lasting negotiations for the long-term iron ore agreement with China, this week the official Chinese authority gave a note to Chinese steel mills indicating that they can use BHP’s iron ore, purchases of which were banned since late last year. This will help lower stocks of BHP’s fines, which have been trapped at ports for months.
Iron ore futures at Dalian Commodity Exchange (DCE) decreased by 0.89 percent to RMB 780.5/mt ($113.8/mt) on April 28 amid the expected easing of supply as the China Mineral Resources Group’(CMRG) has concluded iron ore sales contract negotiations with BHP, as stated by an announcement submitted by BHP to Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) on April 22. The prices will refer to quarterly prices, which will be around $80-90/mt. Meanwhile, the share of settlement of deals in RMB will be expanded to 50 percent (rumor has indicated, in the absence of an official statement so far), which is up from 30 percent agreed by BHP in late 2025. BHP has agreed for the first time to include the Beijing Iron Ore Trading Center's RMB Port Spot Index (COREX), Mysteel and other Chinese domestic indices in the long-term agreement pricing system.
In August 2025, both parties started to negotiate on the long-term iron ore prices for 2026.
The third-largest iron ore miner in Australia Fortesque Metal Group has also been in negotiations with China recently.
The SteelOrbis reference price for Australian fines with 62 percent of Fe has declined by $0.6/mt today, to $108.8/mt CFR. More popular fines with 61 percent Fe have been priced at $106.7/mt CFR
46 deals totaling for 588,500 mt of iron ore have been signed at the Corex platform on April 28, signaling still rather firm demand. In particular, 50,000 mt of 61.5 percent Fe Minmetals standard fines were sold at RMB 775/mt ($113/mt), for delivery at Caofeidian port, and 30,100 mt of 60.13 percent Fe fines were traded at RMB 775/mt ($113/mt), for delivery at Tianjin port.