RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – With the end of the long holiday in China and the resumption of trading in Chinese ports, iron ore ended Friday (08) with solid appreciation in the spot market, returning to the level of US$120 per ton for the first time in more than three weeks.
According to Fastmarkets MB, the ore with 62% iron content advanced 5.4% in the port of Qingdao, to US$123.38 per ton.
With this performance, the primary raw material for steel zeroed the losses accumulated in October and now shows a gain of 3.5%. In the year, the devaluation is still significant, at 23.1%.
At the Dalian Commodity Exchange, the most traded ore contracts maturing in January jumped 4.9% to 762.50 yuan per ton.
According to Fastmarkets, prices reacted bullishly to more robust demand in China, the world’s largest importer of ore.
There are fears that the energy crisis in the Asian country affects the operation of electric furnaces used to transform scrap into steel, which could result in higher consumption of ore to obtain steel products.