Prices of Dalian iron ore futures traded within a thin range on Thursday as investors weighed resilient demand for the steelmaking ingredient in top consumer China against rising shipments from leading producers Australia and Brazil.
The most-traded September iron ore contract on China’s Dalian Commodity Exchange (DCE) ended daytime trade 0.14% higher at 727 yuan ($100.93) a metric ton.
The benchmark June iron ore on the Singapore Exchange was down 0.56% at $99.25 a ton, as of 0704 GMT.
End-user demand remains resilient, particularly in the manufacturing sector, which continues to drive high growth in steel consumption, broker Galaxy Futures said in a note.
The capacity utilisation rate of 104 electric furnaces grew 1.2% week-on-week to 40.4%, while the daily consumption of scrap steel logged a weekly increase of 3.1% to 245,400 tons, said consultancy Hexun Futures.
Hot metal output, typically used to gauge iron ore demand, remained high this week at 2.4477 million tons, said broker Everbright Futures.
Moreover, the total inventory of imported iron ore in 47 ports in China is 146.28 million tons, decreasing 1.74% week-on-week, said Hexun in a separate note.
On the supply side, the total volume of iron ore dispatched from mining firms in Australia and Brazil jumped 11.7% week-on-week to 27.1 million tons, said consultancy Mysteel.
Other steelmaking ingredients on the DCE dipped, with coking coal NYMEX:ACT1! and coke (DCJcv1) down 1.66% and 0.85%, respectively.
Meanwhile, China exported 447,800 tons of stainless steel in April, marking a 14.1% year-on-year surge, Mysteel said in a separate note, citing data released by the General Administration of Customs (GACC) on May 20.
Steel benchmarks on the Shanghai Futures Exchange were little changed. Hot-rolled coil EHR1! edged up 0.09% and stainless steel HRC1! inched up 0.04%, while rebar RBF1! dipped 0.03% and wire rod (SWRcv1) eased 0.06%.
Source: Reuters