Oil up, copper down, steel exports lower, again, coal imports up and iron ore at a all time high – go figure as Chinese imports overall slumped sharply in September on top of a sharper than expected fall in exports.
But not the fall in imports wasn’t uniform.
For example, China’s iron ore imports surged to their second highest level on record in September.
China imported 92.99 million tonnes of iron ore in September, up 6.0% from August, data from the General Administration of Customs showed.
That was the highest since the all-time high of 96.27 million tonnes in December 2015, and up 8% from 86.1 million tonnes in September 2015.
Iron ore imports for January to September reached 763 million tonnes, up 9.1% from a year ago and more than a billion tonnes over the past year (1.017 million).
The country’s steel exports fell 2.3% from August to 8.8 million tonnes last month. Shipments for the first nine months of the year were up 2.4% at 85.12 million tonnes.
China’s crude oil import also rose last month, hitting an all time high, according to the Customs data.
They were up 18% from the same month in 2015 to 33.06 million tonnes in September, hitting a record daily rate of 8.04 million barrels per day (bpd).
The intake volumes continued to surge ahead mainly on buying from private refiners (the so-called tea pot refiners) and inflows into China’s strategic reserves. Bloomberg said a new storage facility for the reserve was opened in September
And in the first nine months of the year, crude oil imports jumped 14% from the same period in 2015 to 284 million tonnes (or 7.55 million bpd).
Coal imports continued to rise and they are now heading to well and truly top 200 million tonnes for the year (instead of a fall of 10% to 15% which was the forecast at the start of the year).
The Customs data showed China imported 24.26 million tonnes of coal in September, up more than a third from a year ago, thanks to government-enforced mine closures which have forced utilities and steel mills to buy more foreign raw material.
For the year to date, imports increased 15.2% to 180 million tonnes.
This surge in Chinese demand (especially for high grade coking coal), has helped drive prices to their highest level since 2011 (spot prices were around $US213 a tonne this week).
September’s total was up from 17.7 million tonnes last year but down from August’s total of more than 26 million tonnes, which was the highest in nearly two years.
Reuters pointed out though that this strong buying may not continue into October after Beijing allowed domestic mines to ramp up output after inventories fell to critically low levels and prices jumped sharply.
The big surprise was the very sharp fall in one of China’s signature imports – copper.
In fact China’s imports of copper fell by more than a quarter in September to the lowest in more than a year, the customs data showed.
Copper imports slumped 26% from a year ago and 2.9% from August to 340,000 tonnes in September. That’s the lowest since at least August 2015.
The country exported 390,000 tonnes of unwrought aluminium and aluminium products, including primary, alloy and semi-finished aluminium products, in September, down from August’s 410,000 tonnes, but up 11.4% year-on-year.
On this performance you’d have to say that China’s economy performed reasonably well in September – but that was not the picture the headline falls in exports and imported painted.
