Crude steel production in China dropped 7% between August and September, falling to 39.61 million metric tonnes. This is the lowest crude production level since the June peak of 46.94mt. Net exports dropped from 6.35mt to 5.39mt in September due to a 1mt decline in exports.
There has been a lot of news lately about how the largest iron ore producers want to change the traditional yearly contract negotiations with their biggest customers. If you are trying to follow what’s going on and you need some background on the iron ore market and history, you can get some answers online through the sources below. All the sources are free except the subscription pricing data described at the end of the post.
Who are the biggest iron ore producers?
USGS (U.S. Geological Survey) publishes the Mineral Commodity Summary on iron ore which lists the output of the largest producing countries and their reserves. I have already mentioned the publications of the Raw Materials Group and UNCTAD in an earlier post, but RMG also have a good summary of the largest producing companies (as well as a general view of what’s going on) in the abstract describing their report The Iron Ore Market 2007-2009.
How much seaborne trade in iron ore is there?
The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE) has a quarterly report called Australian Commodities where it lists the largest importing and exporting countries, describes the current pricing issues, and gives market and pricing forecasts. Metallurgical coal is also discussed in that document, for those who are interested.
Crude steel production in China declined 5% from 44.9 million metric tonnes in July to 42.6m tonnes in August. Net exports increased from 5.8m tonnes to 6.4m tonnes, and the export share of finished steel production continued its climb from 18% in July to 20% in August.
If you are following steel production and trade in China, you might be interested in the spreadsheet below which we will update each month. Since data is typically available six weeks after the end of each month, we are currently posting the July figures. August results should be available by September 20th.
China finished steel production fell 4.4% in July to 40.89 million metric tonnes, reversing the average monthly growth trend through June of about 3%. Net exports rose to 5.8m tonnes, the highest level since April 2007’s 5.5m tonnes. Finally, exports as a share of finished steel production grew from 12% in June to 18% in July.
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