Iron ore closes above $75/dmt mark

21-January-2019

Spot iron ore prices gained further in this week as the demand for key steelmaking raw material remained robust ahead of upcoming Chinese holidays. It was further ticked by the optimism in steel with the US and China looking to resolve their festering trade dispute.

Looking at the benchmark for seaborne spot iron ore prices, Platts assessed the 62% Fe IODEX & TSI Iron Ore Fines at $75.95/dmt CFR North China on Friday. Meanwhile, TSI 58% Fe Fines, 1.5% Al, CFR Qingdao port closed the week at $68.95/dmt.

Moving onto the futures market, the most traded iron ore on the Dalian Commodity Exchange gained as much as 2.6 percent in early trade to hit 525 yuan ($77.48) a tonne, its highest since peaking at 531.4 yuan on March 5 last year. Meanwhile, the most-active rebar contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange rose as much as 2.2 percent to 3,628 yuan a tonne, its highest so far after hitting 3,674 yuan on Nov. 6 last year.