Indian export offers for high grade iron ore fines (with Fe content of 63.5 percent and higher) have moved on a downtrend during the past week, losing $3.20/mt to $66/mt CFR China amid a combination of the changed preference of buyers and mounting nervousness over the trade environment, traders said on Friday, June 22.
“The emerging trend of traders representing Chinese steel mills’ preference for pellets, concentrates and lumps over Indian high grade fines is becoming accentuated and fewer trades are being concluded in the Indian market,” an Odisha-based miner-exporter said.
“We learn that most Chinese mills prefer even to pay a premium for high grade lumps and Indian fines are losing out in the market and buying interest in the Indian market is very low,” the miner-exporter said.
“The nervousness over possibilities of a trade war blowing up is also spreading in the raw material market and impacting futures prices and hence buyers are reluctant to commit large volume transactions too,” the miner-exporter added.
Two other traders said that, with offers nearing the $70/mt mark, early in the month the fallback of offer levels was only to be expected as there is no fundamental support from finished steel prices and raw material buyers are unwilling to conclude transactions at higher levels, anticipating a correction which triggered the reversal of the uptrend during the past week.