WEEKLY: China mills' imported iron ore stocks near 3-m high

Although Chinese steelmakers continue to consume less iron ore lately due to reduced steel output, they have been constantly building up their in-plant stocks of the feed ore to ensure smooth production over winter, Mysteel Global noted.

Daily consumption of imported iron ore sintering fines at the 64 Chinese steelmakers that Mysteel regularly checks fell for the third straight week to an average of 580,600 tonnes/day over December 12-18, down by another 1.1% from the prior week's average, according to Mysteel's monitoring. The lower consumption of sintering fines was mainly