A total of 78 vessels carrying 11.86 million mt of iron ore arrived at major Chinese ports during June 13-19, SMM estimates. This was down 1.29 million mt from the previous week, and down 4.33 million mt from the same period last year. For the same week, iron ore deliveries leaving Australian ports fell 4 mt on a weekly basis to 17.73 million mt. This was down 63 mt from the same period last year. Shipments that departed Brazilian ports were estimated to decrease 1.05 million mt week on week to 5.99 million mt. This was 340,000 mt higher than the same period last year. Both arrivals and deliveries leaving Australian and Brazilian ports decreased month on month. However, the output of molten iron is expected to continue to decline due to the increase of blast furnace maintenance in some domestic steel mills and the continuous news of limited production and emission reduction in some regions, and the influence of the supply side on prices of imported ore is limited in the near term. DCE iron ore futures continued to downward today, the physical port quotations in the morning tend to keep stable from yesterday but there still certain bargain space. Part of traders increased their quotation in the afternoon with the slightly increasing DCE iron ore futures performance. PBF at Shandong and Tangshan port dealt 1455-1465yuan/mt, 1465yuan/mt, respectively, down by 5-15yuan/mt from yesterday.

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Source: Metals Market Index (MMi)