Significant drop in Hebei Steel’s inventories of imported iron ore

Chinese steel producer Hebei Iron and Steel Group Co. (Hebei Steel) has announced that as of July 29 its inventories of imported iron ore have decreased to 2.90 million mt, from 3.80 million mt at the beginning of the current year. While at the start of the year inventories of imported iron ore could support 28 days of production, current inventory levels are sufficient to sustain just 20 days of production. The steel producer has been keeping its ore inventories at low levels in order to ease its tight liquidity situation.