Credit rating agency Fitch has reviewed its iron ore price assumptions on Vale’s still-limited capacity and “continued tight market supply,” it said on Friday.
“Vale would need to markedly ramp up its production in 2020-2022 for the market to be balanced or oversupplied,” the credit rating agency said.
“No other miner has a comparable impact on the market balance and all of them have been pushing hard to deliver incremental volumes and benefit from the price environment,” the agency added.
Fitch said that despite the efforts of global iron ore players to add up to the missing commodity’s supply, they won’t be able to replace 80 million mt Vale lost following the Brumadinho disaster in 2019.
As for this year, Fitch increased its previous estimate for China import iron ore fines of 62 percent Fe content, CFR, from $75/mt to $95/mt.
As for 2021, Fitch expects the product, same conditions, to reach $75/mt, down from its previous assumption of $60/mt for 2021.