Steel Products Prices North America
February 20, 2014
Iron Ore Bubble Building in China
Written by John Packard
Iron ore inventories in China are bloated with 100.91 million metric tons of ore now sitting at the 40 major ports in China. This number has grown since the 86 million metric tons reported prior to the beginning of the Chinese New Year in January. This growth continues despite a slowdown in the Chinese steel industry and a crackdown on lending to the steel mills and traders by the Chinese banks.
We spoke with our iron ore trading source located in Asia who deals with the Chinese mills about the situation on a number of occasions over the past few days as much is being written about the “bubble” being built on the back of non-traditional financing using ore as collateral.
