|
|
|
 |
News
View |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| Asian iron ore market loses footing as buying confidence hit |
|
| News Source：http://www.jinchemical.com/
; SendDate：2014-9-23 15:38:16 |
A tumble in the derivatives and physical steel markets Monday caused an even bigger fall in market sentiment, with buyers withdrawing and sellers lowering offers to entice greater uptake, but to little avail.
Platts assessed the 62% Fe IODEX at $80.50/dmt CFR North China, down $1.50/dmt from Friday.
Steel rebar futures fell especially sharply, with the most liquid January contract in Shanghai last trading at Yuan 2,619/mt ($425.75/mt), down Yuan 95/mt from Friday, and settling at Yuan 2,649/mt, down Yuan 80/mt on the day.
Iron ore futures on the Dalian Commodity Exchange also weakened, with the most actively traded January contract last trading at Yuan 556/dmt, down Yuan 20/mt from Friday, and settling at Yuan 560/dmt, down Yuan 19/mt.
The spot price of physical square billet in Tangshan fell a total of Yuan 70/mt from Friday to conclude at Yuan 2,400/mt ex stock Tangshan Monday.
"It is terrible - billet fell Yuan 40/mt over the weekend and another Yuan 30/mt just today," a steelmaker in central China said.
"There is a portion of Chinese mills that have already completed their purchasing for the National Day holidays, but there are also others who have not," a Shanghai-based trader said. "But the thing is, those who have not restocked fully for the holidays are also not making any active move to procure seaborne material as prices are sliding. They will go to the ports to replenish in smaller quantities if they need to."
The trader added that there was no urgency among buyers to source for spot material as the supply coming in from Australia and Brazil was more than sufficient. "A lot of these miners are trying hard to offer as much material as they can ahead of the holidays so we're seeing tons of tenders and offers, and that will put even more pressure on prices."
A source at an Anshan-based mill said the supply glut in iron ore was the main reason prices had plunged so fast.
"The miners can't be passing all this excess volume from increased production levels solely to their term customers so we are seeing spot tonnages increase significantly," the source said. "Miners are offering one to two cargoes every single day and the price pressure is definitely present."
Another trader in Zhejiang said "not only the miners are offering cargoes now; even the mills are trying to sell some of their term volumes."
This, he said, was not aiding in price recovery.
The steelmaker in Anshan said there would be a new round of environmental regulations surrounding Chinese mills starting at the end of the year, which would place crude steel output under review again. "There should be another round of steel output cuts taking place then and it will impact the buying of steelmaking raw materials like iron ore and coking coal."
"Even if steel prices improve because of those upcoming cuts, we probably won't see this extend to iron ore because of the ore overcapacity problem."
A trader in Hong Kong said there was talk about expectations seaborne ore prices would head to the $75/dmt CFR China level, especially since the market was "horrible" currently. |
|
