China iron ore port inventories rose for 1st time in 8 week

SHANGHAI, Jun 5 (SMM) – Inventories of seaborne iron ore at Chinese ports edged higher this week, after seven consecutive weeks of declines, as improved demand was offset by greater arrivals.

SMM data showed that iron ore stocks across 35 Chinese ports increased 210,000 mt in the week ended June 5 to 99.6 million mt, some 12.85 million mt lower than a year ago.

Sufficient arrivals, coupled with demand losses caused by restrictions on sintering machines at some mills, led to substantial increases in iron ore stocks at ports of Jingtang and Caofeidian, in the top steelmaking hub of Tangshan, this week.

Iron ore stocks at ports in east China’s Shandong also rose this week.

This week, daily average iron ore deliveries from the 35 ports increased 83,000 mt, or around 3% from the prior week to 2.83 million mt, as an SMM survey showed that operating rates at blast furnace steelmakers in China continued to climb in June and as mills ramped up stockpiling given low inventories.

A separate survey by SMM showed that 14.94 million mt of iron ore were estimated to have arrived at major Chinese ports in the week ended May 30, marking a 1.57 million mt increase from the prior week.

Inventories of seaborne iron ore at Chinese ports are expected to continue to trend higher in the coming weeks in anticipation of greater arrivals.