Market Commentary:
The iron ore market has seen a slow retreat throughout this week and has softened further today.
In market news, Iron ore exports from Port Hedland in Western Australia were up by 6.5% year-on-year in April, although shipment volumes to Japan slumped. A total of 37.69 million tonnes of the steelmaking raw material was shipped from the port last month, compared with 35.38 million tonnes in April last year, according to data released by the Pilbara Ports Authority. The volumes, however, were down from the record 39.53 million tonnes seen in March this year. Only 857,071 tonnes of iron ore went to Japan in April. This compared with 1.29 million tonnes in April 2015 and 2.57 million tonnes in March 2016. China received 32.61 million tonnes of the raw material from the Australian port last month, up from 30.12 million tonnes in April last year.
In China, sState-owned steel mill Dongbei Special Steel has defaulted on a fourth loan payment. The mill in north China announced late on Thursday that it failed to repay 741 million yuan ($113.97 million) in one-year notes and interest. Prior to this announcement, the steelmaker had previously defaulted on three loans earlier this year amounting to 3.3 billion yuan ($507.43 million).
AGO Price at posting:
2.1¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
