Iron ore price, page-629

rc frankycc pear-
Macquarie came back from China with a report that mines had reopened in China for a total of 50m tons additional output on 2016 numbers annualised. (so I was out by 25m). However that was before the current downturn. Even with 50m the total additional annualised tonnage from all sources is 89m yet the arc furnace shutdowns and the simple growth of 1% in World Steel Demand plus Samarco replacement add to
demand by some 124m so with the worst position there will still be shortfalls in the second half. If World Steel Demand grows by more than 1% the upside to the iron ore price is huge. My guess is the Chinese will attempt to keep the price below 80 which is the cuttoff for many miners. So we will have a situation where the reopeners will now close again and prices will increase slowly probably to around 80.

My quess is the Chinese policy makers did not want these mines reopened and instructed the SOE's not to buy until the price has dropped sufficiently to stop them. Easier and more cost effective than closing down polluting SOE steel mills whose profits contributed 33b us to Chinese government coffers in January.