Indian export offers for high grade iron ore fines (with Fe content of 63.5 percent and higher) have closed this week unchanged on week-on-week basis at $62.6/mt CFR China, amid mixed signals and divergent views among market participants , traders said on Friday, November 17.
“There are a lot of diverging opinions on the market trends and too many uncertainties, leading to high volatility,” an Odisha-based miner-exporter said.
“This is evident from the fact that the $1.5/mt gain in offers mid-week was quickly wiped off the very next day. However, soon thereafter offers recovered by $1/mt, confounding market participants,” he added.
Sources said that traders representing Chinese steel mills said they are not getting any directions from their principals in view of considerable confusion over the impact of production regulations of steel mills in some regions in China. They said that in the absence of any definitive trends, most aggregating traders had pulled out of the market and are avoiding risks of fluctuating offer levels, and only a small volume of transactions are being concluded by miner-exporters to maintain their production and control inventories.
However, at least two other traders felt that, with offer levels having recovered from below $60/mt twice during the past fortnight, the market might have bottomed out and stability at current levels could trigger fresh buying in the short term.