China’s imports of iron ore, crude oil, and oil products held up well in May as the economy seemed to steady.
Chinese customs said yesterday that imports of iron ore jumped to the 4th highest monthly total on record – 86.75 million tonnes, up 3.4% from April and 22.4% from the same month in 2015.
The figures came a day after Australia’s largest iron ore loading port, Port Hedland, released shipping figures which revealed iron ore exports totalled 39.37 million tonnes in May, an increase of 3.6% from the levels in May 2015.
Iron ore prices fell 24% in May, so there seems to be an element of Chinese steel mills boosting imports to take advantage of the lower prices.
Steel exports rose in May to 9.4 million tonnes in May, higher than the monthly average this year.
Over the first five months of the year China exported 46.28 million tonnes of steel, up 6.4% compared to the same period in 2015.
Meanwhile China’s coal imports, a major market for Australian producers, rose slightly to 19.03 million tonnes last month. This compares to imports of 18.8 million tonnes in April.
China imported 32.24 million tonnes of crude oil in May, equivalent to 7.6 million barrels a day.
Imports were 39% higher than the 23.24 million tonnes of crude shipped in May of last year, but slightly down on the 32.58 million tonnes in April.
China’s copper imports in May jumped by 19.4% to 430,000 tonnes, from May last year. Shipments fell 4.4% from April.
Imports of refined copper, copper alloys and semi-finished copper products totalled 2.31 million tonnes in the first five months of 2016, up 22.1%. And in the first five months of the year, China’s copper concentrate imports rose 34% to 6.7 million tonnes from the same period in 2015.
Aluminium exports were 2.4% higher than the same month in 2015. Total exports fell 7.9% to 1.9 million tonnes for the first five months of this year.
