Gotta say the fall in the IO price seems to be driven again by...

Gotta say the fall in the IO price seems to be driven again by the same old rhetoric you hear a couple of times per year. (IO output to expand in China, demand on its way down etc)

Crude steel output hit a record high in March according to SMM. Port inventories have slid quite a bit in recent months and not far off a year low. Given the PH shutdown 2 weeks ago, there should be a considerable fall when the next figures are announced.

another interesting point is that MIN released their quarterly today. The WMT per IO they would have fetched during the last Qtr would not have been far off their break even point. Their break even points announced were as high as bout USD 95 T one of their mines. Inflation is playing havoc with margins across the board. No issues with the big 3 here but IO can’t really fall much lower before you start getting production curtailed. Almost no chance of IO output expanding if IO is at USD 90, it’d be the opposite.


SHANGHAI, Apr 26 (SMM) - According to the National Bureau of Statistics, China's average daily output of crude steel hit a record high at 3.09 million mt in March. The average daily output of pig iron was 2.52 million mt and the average daily output of finished steel was 4.1 million mt.

The output of crude steel, pig iron and finished steel stood at 95.73 million mt, 78.07 million mt and 127.25 million mt respectively in March, up 6.9%, 7.3% and 8.1% on the year.

The average daily output of crude steel, pig iron and steel stood at 261.56 million mt, 219.83 million mt and 332.59 million mt respectively in January-March, up 6.1%, 7.6% and 5.8% on the year, respectively.