WEEKLY SUMMARY: China's iron ore prices increase, spot coke stable

Chinese prices for imported iron ore increased slightly across both spot and futures markets during July 13-17, mainly as strikes at BHP's operations at Port Hedland raised some concerns about supply disruptions. During the same period, domestic metallurgical coke prices held largely stable in the spot market, though coke futures prices softened after coke firms' attempt for the tenth bout of price hikes eventually failed.

China's blast furnace (BF) steelmakers continued to scale back production during the past week as more mills began to lose money on their operations. During July 10-16, the average capacity utilization rate among the 247 BF steel producers under Mysteel's tracking fell by another 0.77 percentage point on week