Find below the iron ore price table for October 24, 2013:
And the charts:
So, all paper markets continue to weaken and steel as well. The swap spike is back into the previous range and can be discounted as false breakout. 6 month Dalian futures are now signalling an ore price of about $123. Rebar futures are also falling steadily.
But spot keeps on keeping on.
The semi-reliable Baltic Dry is also falling sharply, led by the capesize component, which did spike very impressively in the past month:
In the context of tightening Chinese liquidity it’s a fair bet that spot too will fold soon enough.
Meanwhile the Indian plod towards iron ore exports goes on in Goa:
The Goa government today sought the Supreme Court‘s permission to transport and export 11 million tonnes of already excavated iron ores, lying unused following the ban on mining in the state.
The mined iron ore is “lying idle” and its transportation and export, if permitted, will be under the new rules that entail its electronic monitoring from mines to the ships, the counsel for the state government told a three-judge forest bench headed by Justice A K Patnaik.
The ban on mining, transportation and the export of iron ore has had a “cascading” effect on Goa’s economy, he said.
And the Ministry of Forests has determined new rules:
Mining would not be permitted within one kilometre of national parks and sanctuaries in Goa in the future, the environment ministry has decided in an order that could take the state one step closer to re-start iron ore excavation in a regulated fashion.
The ministry passed the order to this effect on Thursday resolving one of the several issues that requiring a solution to restart regulated mining in the coastal state.
It ordered that areas ranging up to one kilometre beyond the boundaries of the national parks and sanctuaries in the state would be declared as Ecologically Sensitive Zone (ESZ) under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 where mining activities would be banned.
Apparently some 40 mines are within one kilometre of protected zones. 50 are far enough away. Given Goa traditionally accounted for half of Indian iron ore exports, a simple and completely unreliable calculation gives you a potential resumption of 25-30 million tonnes of export in time.
