Another rise in iron ore prices Tuesday saw the price of 62% Fe fines reach closer to $US150 a tonne as data emerged showing a second big slump in Australian exports to China this year in November.
The FastmarketsMB price for 62% fines delivered to northern China rose 1.3% or $US1.42 a tonne to $US148.35, the highest since 2013.
That’s up 12.7% so far in December.
The rise came after the Pilbara Ports Authority reported that iron ore exports through Port Hedland fell 4% to 41.7 million tonnes in November from the same month in 2019.
But it was a much steeper 11% fall from October this year when iron ore exports totalled 47.95 million tonnes.
The fall in exports to China was also marked – a drop of more than 5.3 million tonnes in November or over 13%. That’s an echo of the sharp, 17.5% slide in July from June’s near-record tonnage of 46.18 million tonnes.
Exports to China were also down 7% from November 2019 – from 37.05 million tonnes to 34.44 million which was also sharply down on the lowered figure for July of just over 38 million tonnes.
November’s figure is 25% lower than June’s high. Port Hedland shipments jumped to 43.07 million tonnes in August after the slide in July.
In fact, the 34.44 million tonnes shipped in November was the lowest since the Lunar New Year/COVID-19 impacted shipments in January and February of 33.9 and 33.2 million tonnes respectively.
