Having closed the previous week with an increase, prices of ex-Australia iron ore of 62 percent Fe content for delivery to China's Qingdao port have remained unchanged on Monday, June 26, compared to last Friday, starting the current week at $55.95-57.05/mt CFR China.
During the past week, global iron ore prices have moved up by around 3.6 percent with the influence of the uptrend of finished and semi-finished steel prices in China. However, despite the rises seen in global iron ore quotations, import iron ore demand in China has trended weak throughout of the week and iron ore inventories in Chinese ports have remained at high levels.
In the current week, high levels of iron ore inventories in Chinese ports are expected to continue putting pressure on global iron ore prices. Meanwhile, if the revival of semi-finished and finished steel prices continues this week, iron ore quotations are expected to increase further despite the weakness of demand. But if the increasing trend of semi-finished and finished steel prices slow down or come to a halt, iron ore prices are expected to fall.
Also, analysts at UBS Investment Banking published a latest outlook on the iron-ore prices. "While market woes over a slowdown in China growth appear to have receded somewhat over the past month, iron ore remains fairly depressed at around $56-86/mt in Q1. However, few believed that iron ore prices higher than $80/mt would be sustained for a prolonged period, and we would argue that such levels were far from being priced into the currency. Our commodity analysts expect iron ore prices to average at $71/mt in 2017 and end the year at $60/mt." they said.