China’s iron ore imports from Australia rise 33.5% on year to 55.37 mil mt in July

2014-08-23

China imported 55.37 million mt of iron ore from Australia in July, up 33.5% year on year and 10% from June, data released Friday by the General Administration of Customs showed.

A trader source in Zhejiang said Australian miners like Fortescue Metals Group were selling more iron ore into China as they had ramped up their output and were giving deeper discounts to China buyers in July.

Australia’s Fortescue Metals Group reached a 155 million mt/year production capacity target in end March this year, Platts reported earlier.

“When FMG offered a 15% discount for their flagship 56.7% Fe Super Special Fines product for July, many Chinese buyers [took it up],” said the Zhejiang trader.

“Chinese end-users also preferred to use more Australian ores in their furnaces as they were already used to it and and that explained why there was an increase inflow of ore to China from Australia,” he added.

Australia was the largest supplier of iron ore to China, accounting for 60% of total imports in June.

China’s imported a total of 82.52 million mt of iron ore in July, up 10.7% from 74.57 million mt in June.

Imports from Brazil, China’s second largest iron ore supplier, totaled 14.12 million mt in July, up 7.46% year-on-year and 14.15% month-on-month, the data showed.

Source from : Platts

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