China's H1 iron ore imports down 1.6% on year

China's iron ore imports for the first half of 2018 reversed down 1.6% on year to 530.7 million tonnes, according to the latest statistics released by the country's General Administration of Customs on July 13, which was steeper than the 0.1% decline for the first quarter but within market expectation.

China’s iron ore imports for the first half of 2018 reversed down 1.6% on year to 530.7 million tonnes, according to the latest statistics released by the country’s General Administration of Customs on July 13, which was steeper than the 0.1% decline for the first quarter but within market expectation.

For June alone, China imported 83.2 million tonnes of iron ore, down significantly by 10.9 million tonnes or 11.6% on month, and this was the core contributor to the decline in the first six months.

Brazil’s total shipment to China went down last month because of the scheduled maintenance on its iron ore berths in April, and there was a lag for the affection to show up because of the 40-day lead time from Brazil to China, according to Mysteel’s market survey.

Besides, China’s growing consumption of scrap in steelmaking since the latter half of 2017 has been constraining the domestic steel mills’ appetite for iron ore to some degree, and some market sources including the China Iron & Steel Association expect the country’s iron ore imports to level with that in 2017.

Australian and Brazilian miners had been raising their shipments to complete their annual sales targets, but they loaded and shipped more cargoes in the second half of June, the tonnage will most likely be reflected in China’s iron ore imports in July, according to a Shanghai-based analyst.

As for coal and brown coal, China imported 25.5 million tonne in June, up 3.1 million tonnes or 14% month on month, and the imports for January-June totaled 146.2 million tonnes, up 9.9% on year.

High margins in coke both inside and outside China while comparatively high coking coal prices in China has boosted the interest of the domestic coking plants and traders in seeking supplies from abroad, which are high-quality at affordable prices.

At the same time, China coke exports surged by 120,000 tonnes or 14% on month to 958,000 tonnes for June, and the total tonnage for the first half of 2018 grew 16.9% on year to 4.8 million tonnes.

Written by Zhiyao Li, lizy@mysteel.com

Edited by Hongmei Li, li.hongmei@mysteel.com