A review on Iron ore market review, May 3rd 2019
Stable Asian iron ore market on a quiet day
The Asian seaborne iron ore market stayed stable on Friday with muted trading activity. It was assessed by Platts that the 62% Fe Iron Ore Index at USD 94.65/dry MT CFR North China Friday, up USD 0.05/DMT day on day. The coming June TSI swap was up USD 0.40/DMT on day at USD 92/DMT.
End-users were buying hand-to-mouth as they felt the iron ore market was trading at high levels. "Supply impact that drives iron ore prices high will be gone soon, and we expect that iron ore market will cool down," a procurement source said.
According to another trader, heavy rain in Brazil will stop early next week, and supply of IOCJ fines will come back gradually. But the market still expects spreads between high grade fines and medium grade fines to remain firm due to limited offers at Chinese ports. Supply of low grade fines was heard tight as well.
"Steel mills in northern China are still using low grade fines to blend with domestic concentrates, and there is not much selling pressure at present," a Chinese trader said. The lump premium was stable Friday. A Singapore-based trader said that lump
prices at Shandong ports were still strong on limited supply, but traders were cautious about landing lump cargoes.
"Sintering restrictions ended on May 1, and environmental control policy put lump
premium under uncertainties," a Singapore based trader said.
The spot lump premium was assessed at 31.5 cents/dry MT unit, flat on day.
Domestic concentrate prices were stable on week on limited trades. The 66% Fe domestic concentrate was assessed at Yuan 830/DMT delivered to mills in Tangshan Friday, flat on week.
Report By: Encieh Arbabi
