Indian export offers for high grade iron ore fines (with Fe content of 63.5 percent and higher) moved up by $1.40/mt early in the week to $87.95/mt CFR China, but the market lost momentum and offers then became range-bound with both buyers and sellers moving to the sidelines waiting for a definitive short-term trend to emerge, traders said on Friday, April 26.
“The market is still trying to find a direction amid changing supply-side dynamics. While several global majors are signaling increased supplies, there is still uncertainty over how much the recent disruptions will ease,” an Odisha-based miner-exporter said.
“Buyers are expecting higher anticipated supplies to soften offers and hence have moved to the sidelines and postponed fresh bookings towards the close of the week. Local exporters are not expecting the supply volume to recover as much as expected and believe that downside potential from current levels will be limited. It’s a stalemate market as of now,” the miner-exporter added.
Market sources said that miner-exporters are increasing production ahead of the monsoon season a few months away and aggregating traders are also replenishing port stockyards, anticipating that the recent surge in offers will be sustain. However, any big correction would catch both on the wrong foot, the sources said.
“There are a lot of reports of large mines about to restart operations, though there is no definite confirmation of this. Hence, the market is critically poised and could go in either direction depending how much supply volume comes into the global market over the next few weeks,” the sources said.
“Local offers will remain range-bound with local aggregating traders waiting for confirmation of supply-side reports before they start to push to conclude contracts,” the sources added.