Indian export offers for high grade iron ore fines (with Fe content 63.5 percent and higher) have moved within a narrow range during the past week, marginally moving up by $0.40/mt week on week to $65.80/mt CFR China after tentative mid-week signs of recovery fizzled out amid sentiment that offers are yet to find a new bottom, traders said on Friday, December 7.
“The weak futures market is a big drag in physical trades. The market is showing signs of a definite negative bias. The slight sporadic uptrend is difficult to sustain as buyers feel that offer levels have still not bottomed out,” an Odisha-based miner-exporter said.
“The softening of finished steel prices is showing signs of easing. However, a recovery is so tentative that it is not being translated in the raw material market and most market participants are discounting the possibility of aggressive restocking by Chinese steel mills, which alone can sustain a recovery of the iron ore market,” the miner-exporter added.
According to a metal market analyst with a financial advisory firm, considering possible production cuts by Chinese steel mills and that finished steel prices are still to stabilize, iron ore prices are looking to settle below the $65/mt mark in the short term, and hence during the past week every marginal rise in offers saw buyers retreat and show reluctance to make conclude transactions for any significant volume.