Dalian iron ore rises on consumption resilience, demand concerns limit gains

BEIJING: Dalian iron ore futures rose for a second trading session on Thursday, helped by resilient demand after some mills in China’s top steel production hub Tangshan resumed production, although demand concerns over steel production curbs ahead capped gains.

The most-traded January iron ore on China’s Dalian Commodity Exchange (DCE) traded 0.97% higher at 725 yuan a metric ton, as of 0232 GMT. Iron ore consumption will remain resilient in the near term, as hot metal output still hovered at a relatively high level and some mills have resumed operations of blast furnaces since August, analysts at Huatai Futures said in a note.

“The imported margins (of iron ore cargoes) have been quite decent recently, luring traders to secure the imported cargoes, temporarily supporting the spot prices, with the strengthen filtered through into the domestic futures market today,” said Cheng Peng, a Beijing-based analyst at Sinosteel Futures.

But this is quite dangerous as more cargoes will be brought into the domestic market. Therefore, iron ore prices will likely tumble once demand shows clear signs of softening in the coming weeks, he warned. The benchmark August iron ore on the Singapore Exchange was little changed at $101.35 a metric ton.

Iron ore demand will face downside risk in the medium term, given that steelmakers tend to take a cautious attitude towards raw materials procurement amid looming steel production controls, according to Huatai analysts.

Other steelmaking ingredients were mixed with coking coal climbing 0.37% while coke fell 0.69%. Steel benchmarks on the Shanghai Futures Exchange were broadly weighed down by continuous pick-up in inventories and lukewarm demand.

Also, weighting on sentiment are renewed concerns over China’s flagging property market amid news that big developer Country Garden was not able to make $22 million in bond payments. Rebar dipped 0.22%, hot-rolled coil lost 0.66%, and stainless steel shed 0.23%. Wire rod ticked up 0.21%.