Japan's Iron Ore imports up 7.5% in February, says MoF data

The concentrate price index of domestic iron ore stood at 994.8 yuan/mt last week, up 7.4% from a week earlier. Domestic iron ore prices in the main regions rose 20-130 yuan/mt, mainly due to the following reasons. First, the steel mills have higher demand for iron ore after the National Day holiday. And the domestic ore output in some regions trended lower amid power rationing, torrential rain, transportation restrictions, but recovered slowly from the second half of last week. Meanwhile, the price increases of imported iron ore early last week boosted the domestic ore prices.

Japan produced 107,000 mt of flat rolled aluminium products in April, up 4.7% year on year, according to data from the Japan Aluminium Association

Offers of spot iron ore rose 5-10 yuan/mt on Monday May 14 as prices of futures continued to perform strongly

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A total of 73 vessels with 10.72 million mt of iron ore are expected to arrive at major Chinese ports during May 4-10, SMM learned.

Japan’s largest copper smelter Pan Pacific Copper plans to increase its output by 300,000 mt during April to September this year, the company said last Friday.

Demand for secondary aluminium in casting, die-casting, rolling, and de-oxidising agents in steelmaking is likely to inch up 3% on the year to stand at 1.67 million mt for the 2018 fiscal year 

Iron ore inventory at 35 Chinese ports amounted to 149.32 million mt as of Friday March 23, up 1.32 million mt from a week ago, SMM data showed.

China will ban coal, iron, iron ore, lead, lead ore, aquatic and marine products from North Korea from Aug. 15.

The country's iron ore imports increased modestly during the month of February this year, says latest trade statistics released by Eurostat.