by Chris Becker

The iron ore complex played catchup to other risk markets with sizeable gains across spot and futures in China and on the SGX yesterday, although coking coal slipped slightly.

Here’s the price matrix and daily charts:

Iron ore shipments have slipped for the last week in China, helping support prices, down nearly 400K mt from the previous week, but up from the same period last year. More from SMM:

The amount of arrivals in China’s top steelmaking city of Tangshan continued to edge higher on the week while shipments arrived in Shandong were significantly lower than a week ago.

For the same week, iron ore deliveries leaving Australian ports fell 860,000 mt on the week to 17.56 million mt. This was 5.52 million mt, or close to 46%, higher as compared with the same period last year. The proportion of Australian iron ore destined for China declined from the previous week.

Shipments that departed Brazilian ports were estimated to dip 970,000 mt from the prior week to 6.9 million mt, about 830,000 mt higher than the level of the same period last year.

It remains to be seen whether the anti-smog measures in Tangshan will cause a significant impact on local output. This, coupled with reduced delivery from Australia and Brazil in the near-term, remains supportive of iron ore futures and spot markets.

Daily iron ore price update (shipments slip)