SHANGHAI, Jun 16 (SMM) – A total of 74 vessels carrying 12.37 million mt of iron ore arrived at major Chinese ports in the week ended June 13, SMM estimates. This was down 3.01 million mt from the prior week and down 70,000 mt from a year earlier.

Arrivals at the top steelmaking hub of Tangshan were barely changed from the previous week, while those at Shandong, another major hub in east China, shrank sharply. Price spreads between mainstream products in Shandong and Tangshan, meanwhile, continued to narrow.

For the same week, iron ore deliveries leaving Australian ports fell 2.43 million mt from the week before to 16.63 million mt, due to port maintenance, according to SMM data. That was 1.49 million mt higher than the same period last year.

Shipments that departed Brazilian ports were estimated to have decreased 680,000 mt from the prior week to 6.64 million mt, about 1.82 million mt higher than the level of the same period last year.