Will a global recovery lift iron ore?

Wednesday, 9 September 2020

Via UBS:

Will the restart of blast furnaces ex-China impact iron ore demand in 2H h/h?
No. Over the last month a number of steel producers have restarted BFs which were hot-idled due to COVID-19. We estimate in total ~22 BFs are being restarted around the world or ~30% of the total idled. In our opinion, this is not a surprise given the time-constraints of hot idling & as demand is picking up. We expect most idled BFs to restart by end-20; this is needed for pig iron production ex-China to be flat h/h in 2H.

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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.