Spuza, Chinese blast furnace requires both high and mid/low...

Spuza,

Chinese blast furnace requires both high and mid/low grade mix to produce the best quality steels, RIO's no1 "enemy" is Chinese IOs, FMG's no1 "enemy" is India IOs.

Chinese Steel Mills like to use FMG's IO due to it's chemical composite, with certain percentage added, it improves the "air flow" during steel making. Best used with low alumina Brazilian IO powder or Chinese IO powder, typically they use 10-30% FMG IO, or in some cases up to 40%.

When IO price was low, FMG pretty much was the ONLY mid-low IO producer left on the market. Hence their IOs were "loved" by steel mills for their "high quality" mid-low grade IOs. FMG was getting a good price for their IOs, some at less than 10% discount to 62% Platts.

But now with IO above US$65 , there are competitions from India. It's hard to say what IO price is "best" for FMG, and again, Nev probably got it spot on, US$60 to 65.

So ST let the market sort it out and if FMG have the Mid-Low IO market pretty much for themselves again, then FMG should get a good price for their IO and hence SP will improve, after all, the steel mills still need 10-30% of FMG "type" of IOs.

DYOR.

Frank.