China mills’ imported iron ore stocks at 2-month high

Stocks of imported iron ore sintering fines at the 64 Chinese steel mills under Mysteel’s weekly survey swelled to a two-month high of 16.8 million tonnes over April 9-15, as most Chinese steelmakers had urgent replenishment demand amid relatively high operating rates of their sintering machines, market sources said on Thursday.

As of April 15, imported fines inventories at these steelmakers rose 750,600 tonnes or 4.7% on week, Mysteel’s latest data showed. At the same time, the daily fines consumption at the surveyed mills inched down from the previous week’s ten-month high of 611,100 tonnes/day to 604,700 t/d though it