Chinese iron
ore spot
market activity died down in March as an aggressive sell-off on Dalian
Commodities Exchange (DCE) iron ore futures undermined buyers’ confidence, said
the Steel Index.
TSI recorded 64 spot transactions in March. This was the same
number as seen in February, a shorter month which also sees a week-long
slowdown due to the Chinese New Year holiday. The first half of March saw the
bulk of the activity.
The release of February customs data for China showed a 14% fall
in imports of iron ore into the country that month. Monthly data is notoriously
patchy - particularly around the longer national holidays, when customs
processing is halted - but, revealingly, this was a 34% year-on-year jump on
the February 2014 import level.
Iron ore exports from the Western Australian hub of Port Hedland
came in at 36.6 million tonnes in March, of which 31.2 million tonnes went to
China. The total was up 2.5% on February and just 6% on March 2014 (for the
past year, monthly exports have been more like 30% higher).
Source- Scrap register