Is there a rebound in iron ore prices underway?
Friday saw the spot price rise 1.7% to $US80.40 a tonne, overnight there was a further rise and the price of November ore was quoted in Singapore Monday night at $US82.87, up 3.1%.
But the spot price in northern China went further, jumping almost 5% to end at $US84.17. The spot price has now risen more than 6% in the past two trading days and is up sharply from the five year low of $US77.50 a tonne at the end of September.
Helping boost the price was news of several cargoes of Australian ore being sold at sport price levels well above $US80 a tonne on Friday night and yesterday in Asia.
The market firmed off the back of a 13% rise in China’s iron ore imports in September from August to 84.69 million tonnes, the second highest monthly volume on record after the more than 86 million tonnes imported in January. Imports totalled 74.88 million tonne since August.
Analysts said the big rise reflected continued strong supply from Australia.
Analysts also said some cargos were included in September’s figures because of the National Day holiday period from October 1 through October 7.
China’s imports jumped a huge 27% from October last year when 67.83 million tonnes of ore were imported.
Much of the extra iron ore seems to be being used to make steel which ships straight into export markets by hard pressed mills.
China’s September net exports of steel products reached 7.2 million tonnes, up 4.5% from the previous high in May.
In absolute volume terms, steel exports reached 8.5 million tonnes, also a record, and up a huge 73% from September 2013.
Steel exports for the first nine months of the year soared a massive 39% to 65.3 million tonnes.
China’s copper imports painted a different picture. September’s imports totalled 390,000 tonnes in September this year, up 14.7% from August, but down 14.8% compared to September last year. That’s despite cheaper prices this year.
Copper imports during January to September period this year totalled 3.59 million tons, up 10.5% year-on-year, thanks to a surge in imports earlier this year.
China imported 27.58 million tonnes of oil last month, or 6.74 million barrels a day.
Imports were 7.4% higher than the 25.68 million tonnes of crude imported in September of last year, and up around 9.5% from 25.19 million tonnes in August.
China imported 21.16 million tonnes of coal and exported 440,000 tonnes in September, according to the data from the Customs Administration.
Coal imports rose from the two year low in August of 18.86 million tonnes.
