The average SMM Mines Price Index fell 1.3% to 93.43 last week. Steel mills in China cut procurement prices and continued to reduce purchasing volumes of Chinese iron ore concentrate last week due to weakening import prices, leaving stocks piled up at Chinese iron mines. SMM believes that iron ore concentrate prices are no longer subject to only market fundamentals and production costs and prices may fall further.
Background
The iron ore pricing has always been dominated by the world's top three iron ore producers. As world's largest steel producer and consumer, China, however, has never had a voice in iron ore talks. World's top three mining giants led by BHP expect the financialisation and indexation of iron ore, so that the price is not only determined by supply & demand, but also affected by many other factors.
Industry Trend
The world's top three iron ore producers together raised the iron ore contract prices in Q3 2010, leaving the already sluggish steel market in a worse situation. In contrast, existing prices of domestic iron ores and spot prices of imported ores are well below iron ore contract prices. Contract prices are higher than spot prices. Where do/ will Chinese steel mills go?
Thus, SMM launches China Iron Ore Weekly Monitor which emphasizes on tracing and analyzing the iron ore price and its trend. SMM also issues Iron Ore Price Index based on the prices gathered from domestic iron ore miners directly. Moreover, the integrated research on iron ore import & export, plus the analysis on weekly highlights could help readers to understand China iron ore market comprehensively and allows more accurate prediction of price movements.
Source: Shanghai metals Market