Actually I think I know the reason for the difference between...

Actually I think I know the reason for the difference between weekly shipments for month and monthly export data.

Exports=Sales: They do not equal shipments

Vale recognises the sale/export from its blending facility from this CY as follows:


“Regarding the inventory management procedures mentioned above, according to previous practices, once a commercial agreement was reached, ownership of the product at our blending facilities was transferred to the customer and revenue was recognized, irrespective of retrieval of the ore by the customer. Consequently, the ore sold had to be segregated at the port awaiting retrieval, and therefore port operational capacity was constrained due to lack of stockyard flexibility. According to the new commercial practices, ownership of the product and hence revenue recognition is only granted upon cargo retrieval, which affects the timing of sales revenue recognition.”

Therefore the increased exports did not result in shipments increasing from origin, which is the lead indicator in this instance.

Therefore, once again, analysts and so forth have latched onto the export figure to validate their claim of IO supply increasing.

It could have simply been because of greater drawdowns from port that resulted in the higher export number.

Shipments were lower than June from Brazil. Not that I needed further convincing that demand far outweighs supply but this just validates my thoughts even more.