From the Australian. Quoting less than half the article. Note the 100MTPA reference in the second last paragraph. That 100 is our project. (Simandou isn’t quite ready for development given the huge cost)…
Both Rio Tinto and Fortescue Metals have already established China-based trading arms, and both are already blending iron ore into port stockpiles in the country to service smaller steel mills that would not normally buy an entire cargo of Australian ore.
Fortescue non-executive director Penny Bingham-Hall told the forum: “The Australian iron ore industry has got a new customer. I’m a great believer that markets are defined by supply and demand and China is an incredibly important market for Australia. It’s been touted for a while and it has been tried before. So I guess we’re waiting to see how it evolves.”
A Rio spokesman said the company looked forward to “engaging with the new China Mineral Resources Group, government and our customers to understand more”.
Beijing has been planning the newly established company since mid-2020 to consolidate iron ore purchasing for the sprawling industry and co-ordinate mining investments. The development is part of what the Xi administration has dubbed its “foundation plan”, an attempt to reduce its vulnerability on strategic resources.
That plan was discussed during the “Two Sessions” annual political and policy meeting in March, and is part of a decades-long effort to reduce its iron ore exposure to Australia and Brazil.
Chinese government officials have said the “foundation plan” had three parts: increasing China’s domestic production by 100 million tons of iron ore by 2025, growing China’s scrap steel industry, and developing new iron ore projects, particularly the troubled Simandou project in West Africa.
Ma Qiang, an analyst at the Beijing-based Iron and Steel Industry Research Institute, said the new company would help to “solve the problem of unequal influence” of Australian and Brazilian iron ore companies in negotiations with Chinese steel companies. China’s enormous steel industry is scattered among 500 steel mills.
