Iron ore prices for June 5, 2020: Not much in news. Brazil is still awful: Chia is leveling off at 90% industrial recovery but realty is the main game: UBS offers a few charts that capture where we are: The steel mountain has not adjusted at all so mills could cut production at any time
Yep. Via UBS: Iron ore appears well-supported by current tightness The iron ore price (62% CFR China) has averaged US$89/t YTD with spot now over US$100/t and above our CY 20e forecast of US$86/t. We are comfortable with our forecast based on 1) a strong recovery in Vale iron ore production which will require a
Iron ore prices for June 5, 2020: We’ve stalled for now. Chinese indicators appear to have settled at around 90% capacity recovery in everything except building: Brazilian supply remains the key story. Virus to the moon: Iron ore shipments seriously struggling: Vale is going to have to warn again. And other problems: June is seasonally
Iron ore prices for June 2, 2020: AFR has a great story today: The Brazilian company at the centre of the iron ore price rally says its mines are running on minimum staff levels to prevent the spread of the coronavirus among its workforce, as its licence to operate comes under extreme pressure from Brazilian
Iron ore prices for June 1, 2020: Spot somehow fell despite runaway futures which then reversed overnight. The surge is driven by a combination of recovering Chinese demand as empty apartments blossom with infrastructure: The steel PMI launched back into the positive at 50.9 with new orders surging to 52.6: Leaving China short of the
The RBA has released its commodity price index for May, which rebounded 1.8% in SDR (currency weighted) terms – the key determinant of the terms-of-trade – but slumped by 7.4% over the year: Preliminary estimates for May indicate that the index increased by 1.8 per cent (on a monthly average basis) in SDR terms, after
Iron ore prices for May 29, 2020: Everything to the moon. The China PMI has construction registering above 60 again, boom-time levels. This is despite what remains a weak Chinese recovery: But, as usual, what growth in activity there is is focussed on, you guessed it, empty apartments and roads to nowhere. So all good
Iron ore prices for May 28, 2020: Brazil looks bad again: It could be bad enough to disrupt seasonal weakness.
Apologies for lateness today. Been wrestling with a Telstra bot all morning. Iron ore prices for May 27, 2020: Not much in news. Here’s the latest steel inventory chart: Looks impressive but it isn’t. Seasonally-adjusted the stock is just as high as it was at its peak. The reasons why is that demand remains relatively
Via The Australian: Australian barley on its way to China has been diverted mid route to Japan and the United Arab Emirates following China’s decision to impose punitive trade tariffs on the grain. Four ships carrying Australian barley have changed course or cargo after rising trade tensions led to China — Australia’s biggest barley buyer
Iron ore prices for May 26, 2020: Not pretty on a day of tearaway broader fakeflation. Here’s why: China’s steel association and major steelmakers have called for an increase in domestic iron ore production as well as greater investment in exploration overseas to ensure supplies. He Wenbo, chairman of the China Iron & Steel Industry
Iron ore prices for May 22, 2020: Spot down on Hong Kong tensions. Paper and steel too. CISA major mill output for early May was the highest ever. My guess is that’s because a lot of EAF production remains offline. The reality is, end-user demand is still weak, via Capital Economics: And there wasn’t of
Iron ore prices for May 21, 2020: Everything flew late as this: After Brazilian iron ore miner Vale SA cut its 2020 production outlook to 310 million-330 million tonnes, from 340 million-355 million tonnes previously, “more downgrades may be on the way as COVID-19 infections accelerate in Brazil’s key mining provinces”, said Morgans Financial Ltd
Via the AFR comes a huge laugh out loud: China has changed its inspection procedures for iron imports under new rules that analysts say could be used to block Australia’s most important export, as trade tensions between the two countries escalate. China’s Customs authorities said in a notice the new supervising rules, which take effect
Iron ore prices for May 20, 2020: The latest high-frequency data from Capital Economics is not very good: If it were not for Brazilian risks these numbers would suggest that iron ore should be falling. Though there this: Local government debt issuance is mad as the infrastructure pipeline refills. Still, the recovery remains fitful and
Iron ore prices for May 19, 2020: These price moves are all about a Brazil supply panic. Which does not mean it’s not rational. The virus is going nuts: That said, this: A total of 88 vessels carrying 13.51 million mt of iron ore arrived at major Chinese ports during May 10-16, SMM estimates. This
Iron ore prices for May 18, 2020: Whoho! And we’re off. Spot to the moon. Paper…moon. I would like to see rebar break its downtrend too but the huge inventory overhang explains that. Port inventories are cratering. Add Brazil sinking into virus disaster and China reverting to form with building stimulus – which will get stronger
Via the excellent Damien Boey at Credit Suisse: “Hard” indicators in China improving. Official headline data for China were mixed in April. Industrial production surprised to the upside, while retail sales and fixed asset investment surprised to the downside. But there was general improvement in the “hard” indicators we track for the sake of the Australian commodities outlook. Year-ended growth in electricity
Iron ore prices for May 187, 2020: We’ve now got a pretty good restocking pulse going. Some of it is doubtless steel mills looking at Chinese stimulus but the recovery is still slow and halting: The more important driver remains the supply side, in particular Brazil, which is inking into virus hell. Only six weeks
Prices for May 15, 2020: Goldman has a wrap: Goldman Sachs says the iron ore price could retreat to $US70 a tonne as the market moves into surplus in late May-June before rebounding back to $US85 a tonne in the fourth quarter. The broker estimates the iron ore market was in a 20 million tonne
Iron ore prices for May 13, 2020: I see this latest strong price action as a combination of restocking, exaggerated by Brazil worries, and strong seasonality. The last will reverse into June but the former will last as long as the virus threatens supply. Capital Economics high-frequency indexes look better today too: The major pulse
Iron ore prices for May 12, 2020: Chinese credit gave us a bounce yesterday but I am much more concerned about Brazill, via Domain: Faced with overwhelmed hospitals and surging coronavirus deaths, Brazilian state and city governments are lurching forward with mandatory lockdowns against the will of President Jair Bolsonaro, who says job losses are
From Westpac’s excellent Justin Smirk: Coal prices tumbled in April, iron ore was more stable while base metals firmed a little Coal prices have been falling rapidly with the latest spot Qld met coal prices down –39% in the last three months and Newcastle thermal down –21%. As a result we have lowered our near,
Iron ore prices for May 11, 2020: Not much in news but check this out: Suddenly the empty apartments recovery looks to be in trouble. No wonder the PBOC is mulling flood stimulus. More on that later.
So says Grattan: Australia has an historic opportunity to create a multi-billion-dollar, export-focused manufacturing sector based on globally competitive renewable energy. Using Australia’s plentiful wind and solar resources to make energy-intensive ‘green’ commodities could create tens of thousands of jobs in regions that currently employ tens of thousands of coal miners and other ‘carbon workers’
Via the ABC: China has fired its first shot in an increasingly bitter diplomatic row, threatening to slap major tariffs on Australia’s barley exports, that could rip hundreds of millions of dollars from the trade. Relations between Canberra and Beijing have hit a fresh low in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, as Prime Minister
Iron ore prices for May 10, 2020: Spot jumped, I suspect over two days. Steel output is now roughly tracking last year’s output despite the vast inventory overhang. The Brazil risk is rising: Concerns about Brazilian iron ore supply resurfaced among market participants this past week due to expectations that exports of the product would
Rio wants it fixed, at The Australian: Rio Tinto boss Jean Sebastien Jacques says sorting out Australia’s long-term energy policy should be a key plank in the federal government’s plans to bring the national economy back from the coronavirus crisis, saying cheap and reliable power is one of the keys to economic recovery. Speaking to
Iron ore prices for May 7, 2020: Spot didn’t rise but Banana Man is back in Dalian. Why steel is rising is anybody’s guess. The glut remains titanic. Coking coal got a short term boost from the QLD mining explosion. Chinese iron ore imports were pretty good in March: Even over the first quarter they
Iron ore prices for May 7, 2020: Nothing much to crow about there after the holiday. Citi is bearish: Citigroup on Tuesday lowered its forecast for iron ore prices which it expects to hit $70 in May due to softening steel demand that will weigh on prices, it said in a research report. Citi said
