Commodities Iron Ore The Indian government may consider banning iron ore exports to meet the needs of the domestic steel industry, which is facing severe raw material shortage. Endorsing a proposal of the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham), the steel minister, Mr Ram Vilas Paswan, indicated the country’s iron ore reserves may be auctioned to domestic steel producers just as government awards coal blocks to indigenous power producers. Releasing an Assocham study ’Steel Cementing Growth’, the minister advised the chamber to take up the issue, seeking a ban on iron ore exports at the highest political level and other senior functionaries in the cabinet and Planning Commission in view of sensitivity involved on the issue. Chinese steel mills are delaying imports of iron ore from Brazil as freight rates have surged unexpectedly, in part due to a Taiwanese speculator which has chartered and put aside several huge dry bulk carriers. Shipping officials and iron ore traders said some mills in China, the world’s top steel producer, were delaying nominating vessels to fetch iron ore from Brazil as rates were now as high as $36-$37 a tonne, up from around $22-$23 a month ago. They were trying to take more spot iron ore cargoes from India, priced at $68-$70 a tonne, landed in China, compared with $80-$83 from Brazil, because of its geographic proximity. "So many steel mills are trying to delay nomination of the vessels to Brazil," said a senior iron ore trader based in Beijing. "The spot (ore) market from India is getting active." The officials said the unexpected rebound in freight rates had hit trade from distant Brazil, the number three-ore supplier to China after Australia and India, especially as the mills were worried about falls in steel product prices later this year.
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