Arrivals grow iron ore port stocks over holiday

SHANGHAI, Oct 11 (SMM) – Iron ore stocks across Chinese ports rose from the level seen before the week-long National Day holiday, showed an SMM survey, as seaborne cargoes continued to arrive during the break.

As of October 11, inventories of iron ore across 35 Chinese ports stood at 116.64 million mt, up 5.94 million mt from September 27 but down 15.41 million mt from a year ago.

During October 5-11, daily iron ore deliveries from those ports averaged 2.82 million mt, up 364,000 mt from the week ending September 27 and 149,000 mt from the same period a year earlier.

China’s northern, central and eastern regions, including the top steelmaking hub of Tangshan, lifted alerts for heavy air pollution around October 2, which meant production restrictions on steel mills were removed. This led to the increase in iron ore deliveries leaving ports, especially the two in Tangshan.

Tangshan banned shipments into and out of Caofeidian port from CST 20:00 Thursday October 10 to CST 20:00 Friday October 11.

Steel mills remained cautious about purchasing iron ore and dependent on existing stocks, in fear of additional production curbs.