GACC: China's 2023 iron ore imports reach all-time high
During December alone, China imported 100.9 million tonnes of iron ore, lower by 1.8% on month but still recording a large gain of 11% compared with December 2022, Mysteel Global calculated based on the GACC data.
Behind the rise in the country's iron ore imports last year was the firm demand of domestic steelmakers for the raw material, Mysteel Global notes, with many mills running their blast furnaces hard to benefit from a surge in finished steel export demand and to protect their market shares.
During January-November 2023, China's total production of pig iron reached 810.3 million tonnes, increasing by 1.8% from the same period in 2022, according to the latest release by the country's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
On the other hand, top iron ore suppliers Australia and Brazil shipped more iron ore globally last year as the miners suffered fewer disruptions to production and shipments from unfavorable seasonal weather events such as cyclones, market watchers noted.
In addition, encouraging those miners to raise their production and exports were the particularly high prices their ore was fetching, particularly in last year's July-December half.
For example, Mysteel SEADEX 62% Australian Fines started strengthening steadily from last September and hovered high at more than $130/dmt CFR Qingdao during the last two months of the year.
Despite China's record imports of iron ore in 2023, the supply-demand balance of the commodity showed some tightness given that the domestic mills' consumption of ore had improved significantly in the meantime.
A pointer to this lies in the fact that although the inventories of imported ore at the 45 major Chinese ports Mysteel regularly surveys followed the seasonal pattern during October-December last year and accumulated, the volume of 119.9 million tonnes recorded on December 28 was still 9% lower than the level a year earlier.
Written by Lea Li, liye@mysteel.com
Edited by Russ McCulloch, russ.mcculloch@mysteel.com
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