SINGAPORE: Iron ore futures prices eased on Tuesday, weighed by steel mills undergoing annual furnace maintenance and rising Chinese port inventories.
The most-traded May iron ore contract on China’s Dalian Commodity Exchange (DCE) traded 0.64percent lower at 775.5 yuan (USD110.30) a metric ton, as of 0258 GMT. The benchmark January iron ore on the Singapore Exchange was 0.49 percent lower at USD104.25 a ton.
Steel mills currently have blast furnace annual maintenance plans, leading to a wider decline in pig iron production, while port inventories continue to accumulate, indicating a marginal weakening of fundamentals, said Chinese broker Everbright Futures. Total iron ore stockpiles across ports in China climbed 1.19percent week-on-week to about 145.5 million tons, as of December 19, according to SteelHome data. Broadly, major steel producers posted mixed readings. Japan’s crude steel output fell 1.6percent in November from a year earlier to 6.77 million tons, while India’s steel production grew 6.1percent year-on-year against a revised 5.9 percent rise in October. Meanwhile, the dollar index, which measures the currency against six other units, eased to 98.18 in early trading on Tuesday.