Iron ore stocks at 35 Chinese ports piled up

As of December 29, iron ore inventory across 35 ports tracked by SMM totalled 116.83 million mt, up 1.21 million mt WoW. Looking ahead to this week, acceleration of steel mills’ stockpiling will be felt. Moreover, BF steel mills in some areas of North China will resume production from shutdown triggered by environmental protection-related production limits. Therefore, strong iron ore concentrate demand will be monitored, which will probably increase cargo pick-up from the ports. But meanwhile iron ore arriving at ports may keep hiking in near future. Under this circumstance, iron ore inventory at ports may still build up.