Daily iron ore price update (India trouble!)

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Find below the iron ore price table for July 31, 2013:

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With swaps pricing where it is you would expect the spot price to be trading somewhere around $120 or just under.

Meanwhile, it seems there are some brains at work in India after all, quite high powered ones. From Reuters:

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India’s mines ministry is seeking a cut in the iron ore export duty after a sharp fall in overseas shipments, days after the prime minister spoke about increasing exports to tame the country’s current account deficit.

…”I have written to the finance and commerce ministries to consider a cut in the duty, at least on low-grade fines,” mines minister Dinsha Patel said on Wednesday on the sidelines of a conference, declining to give the duty he had suggested.

…”With the withdrawal of about 100 million tonnes (of Indian iron ore) from the world market, iron ore prices that were in a declining trend suddenly firmed up, benefiting (foreign) private companies at the cost of India and its exporters,” Daga said.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said earlier this month that the government was trying to remove “constraints in the export of iron and other ores”.

Government officials declined to say what steps the prime minister was referring to, but Daga said he expected a cut in the export duty soon as a result of hectic lobbying by FIMI with government departments.

“I am convinced that the problem of Goa will be resolved soon,” Patel said.

A resumption of Goan exports would offer 40 million tonnes or so in exports. It has been estimated by Mac Bank to be worth $20 to the spot market.

As I’ve argued all along, I expect the madness of what India has done to become self-evident over time. The question is when.

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About the author
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.