Australian iron ore miner Fortescue Metals Group has announced that international credit rating agency Fitch Ratings has affirmed its long-term issuer default rating at 'BB+' and revised its outlook to stable from negative. According to Fitch Ratings, the revision of the outlook to stable from negative reflects Fortescue’s demonstrated ability to reduce production costs amid persistently low iron ore prices and Fortescue is now one of the lowest-cost iron ore suppliers to Asia (mainly to China).
Meanwhile, Fortescue also stated that international credit rating agency S&P Global Ratings (S&P) has upgraded the outlook of the company to stable and reaffirmed its corporate credit rating at 'BB'. The stable outlook reflects S&P’s view that the company has improved its resilience to lower iron ore prices through continued cost reduction, operating efficiencies and progressive debt reduction and further that the company’s production costs could be the lowest among its peers.