Iron ore is one of the biggest dry bulk commodities traded with estimated seaborne trade of more than 1 billion tonne every year.

 

The financial tsunami in 2008 end delivered a death blow to age old annual benchmark pricing system. In the last 5 years the iron ore price mechanism has further changed from quarterly mostly to TSI/Platts index based spot system. Leveraging the volatility in iron ore prices, financial institutes have successfully created SWAPS to manage price risk and exposure.

 

On the supply side also, some prominent sources like India have dried up while new sources like Iran, Venezuela, CIS etc have opened up for global trade

 

With China being the largest consumer of seaborne traded iron ore, the global iron ore prices have a direct influence on health of steel sector in China. On the other hand, with almost 48% of global crude steel production and consumption, the steel prices in China have a direct bearing on steel prices in most of the steel consuming regions

 

After downtrend during March to early June, iron ore prices have been recovering and are hovering a shade more than USD 130 CFR mark.

 

In brief, the iron ore price monitoring parameters and mechanism has also undergone sea change. The new Iron Ore Market Information service provides you input on almost all the pricing points

 

Import Prices CFR China & Export Prices FOB Country of Origin