[China Iron and Steel] July iron ore imports increased by 6.8% from the previous month to a new four-month high

China’s imports of iron ore in July rose by 6.8% from the previous month to a new high in four months, while benefiting from domestic mine production could not meet the growth in demand for steel, and iron ore imports will continue to climb in the coming months.

Analysts also mentioned that taking into account the acceleration of investment in affordable housing in the second half of the year and the growth in demand for other related machinery and other steel products, the import of iron ore in the coming months is expected to continue growing.

According to the data released on Wednesday by Customs, China imported 54.55 million tons of iron ore in July, a year-on-year increase of 6.5%. The price of imported ore is still rising. In the first 7 months, China imported 390 million tons of iron ore, an increase of 7.9%. The price was 162.8 US dollars per ton, up 39.1%, the highest level in history.

Analysts said that despite the recent commodity price pressure due to the US sovereign rating downgrade, but the price of imported iron ore did not drop significantly, its 63.5% taste of imported ore price is still around 185 US dollars, but the transaction is very light.

"Before the U.S. rating crisis, steel, gold, and silver and ninety percent of the industry made it widely expected by industry insiders that steel prices will usher in a wave of gains, which will increase the volume of imported ore," said Zhang Jiabin, an analyst at China United Steel Network. "This short-term factor (U.S. The systemic collapse caused by the rating crisis will not have much impact on ore prices."

He stressed that as long as the steel mills do not stop production, ore prices can not fall, and because the domestic mines are not likely to continue to significantly increase production, so the amount of imported ore will not come down.

Although the profit of the Chinese steel industry has dropped to a very low point, as long as there is profit, the steel mills will have a driving force for production. An industry official frankly stated, "Now HRC still has 100 yuan (***) per ton profit, and the thread The profit is better. From another perspective, the thinner the profit, the more it is necessary to increase production to increase total profit."

A person from Junshi Steel's Beijing office also emphasized that the expected increase in ore prices is still relatively strong. On the one hand, because of the low taste of domestic ore, the new large blast furnaces in China in recent years can generally only be imported with high grades. Mine. Coupled with China's current investment is still relatively large, more engineering projects, so the demand is still there.

"Because many factories now have relatively tight funds, they usually wait for the goods (iron ore) to come and buy them at market prices," he said.

China Steel Association has previously said that due to the sharp rise in the price of imported iron ore, its member companies' profit margin in the first half of the year was only 3.14%, down 0.4% year-on-year.