Commodities

Rio’s first quarter production report was out earlier today and was a fizzer: Rio Tinto chief executive Sam Walsh said “Rio Tinto has started the year with a series of performance records as we continue to drive productivity gains across our operations.

From the AFR: The mining junior that claimed to have sourced $6 billion worth of funding from a mystery backer has broken its promise to reveal full details of the money this morning.

Here are the iron ore charts for April 14, 2014: Iron ore paper market softness continues.

Here’s a remarkable chart from Deutsche showing how Australia captured by far the largest share all of the China boom upside for iron ore: One advantage in being a quasi-banana republic is that there are relatively fewer impediments to swift development.

Late Friday news broke that: Investors have shown interest in a highly unusual $6 billion equity deal this morning that is being spruiked by junior miner Padbury Mining.

From India’s Business Standard: Iron ore exports from India are likely to exceed 25 million tonnes in 2014-15, a growth of over 60% compared to last year.

Here are the iron ore price charts for April 11, 2014: Not much fun in paper markets with rebar futures down as well.

Iron ore has a habit of making a goose out of analysts.

At the AFR, Jennifer Hewitt is living the high life.

Here are the iron ore charts for April 10, 2014: A stall for paper markets, then, with rebar futures also falling.

The iron ore bears are queuing up this morning.

From the World Steel Association today: The World Steel Association (worldsteel) today released its Short Range Outlook (SRO) for 2014 and 2015.

Something of a reversal of recent fortunes with paper markets pausing (rebar futures eased) and physical leading.

Here are the iron ore charts for April 8, 2014: Decent paper market action with all futures are swaps up.

From UBS’s excellent Glyn Lawcock  today come previews of miner quarterly reports.

Here are the iron ore charts for April 7, 2014:     So, now we’re seeing some momentum in paper and physical prices (sorry, some prices not updating this morning).

From the SMH, a whistleblower at Gina’s Roy Hill says: …up to 200 white-collar 457 visa workers, about half of whom are Korean nationals aged under 30, are clocking up more than 84 hours a week.

Here are the iron ore charts for April 4, 2014; It was a good day on Friday for iron ore.

Here are the iron ore charts for April 3, 2013:   Rebar futures were up a little.

See above the April Platts steel sentiment index for April, which is kind of like Mac Bank’s version except not as good.

Here are the iron ore charts for April 2, 2014: Paper markets were weak across the board with rebar futures also falling some.

Coking coal has sunk to a spectacular new low of $105: That has BHP up in arms.