SMM News: the world's largest mining company BHP Billiton warned that the crazy trend of iron ore prices will continue.
BHP said there could still be "considerable price volatility" in the future as the seaborne iron ore market continued to adjust to supply disruptions caused by the Brazilian mining disaster in January.
The mining giant noted that supply conditions were "highly uncertain" next year and said Chinese port inventories were likely to continue to shrink in 2019 after a "startling decline" from late 2018.
BHP accounts for about 7 per cent of global iron ore production. The warning coincided with unprecedented turmoil in the global steel raw material market, with iron ore prices rising to their highest level in five years and then falling sharply.
"although we do not believe that the current limitations of Brazilian exports do not provide sufficient information for long-term equilibrium pricing, we expect the price normalization process to take several years," Huw McKay, BHP's vice president of market analysis and economic research, said in a outlook report released with the company's results.
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