Yang Jiasheng, president of the Metallurgical Mines' Association of China (MMAC), has stated at the 2014 World Iron Ore (China) Summit held in Nanjing that oversupply in the global iron ore market will total 46 million mt for the current year, while the annual oversupply figure is expected to reach 180 million mt by 2016.
By the end of the first half this year, the three main miners in Australia had completed their expansion plans, with Rio Tinto's annual iron ore production capacity reaching 290 million mt, with BHP Billiton's output capacity reaching 217 million mt, while Fortescue Metal Group's annual production capacity increased to 155 million mt.
Mr. Yang went on to say that annual global iron ore production will increase to 2.5 billion mt within three years, with an average year-on-year growth rate of seven percent.
However, the growth of global iron ore consumption will slow down in the coming years as growth of construction activity has slackened in China, with a resulting slowdown in the growth rate of the country's iron ore consumption. The MMAC official estimated that the growth rate for global iron ore demand will decline to three percent within the coming three years.