China's iron ore hits over 1-week high, rebar retreats
Benchmark iron ore futures in China climbed to their highest in more than a week on Thursday as steel mills continued to buy raw materials, but the uncertain outlook for the country’s steel demand capped further gains.
Steel prices fell, with construction steel rebar retreating after two days of gains.
The May 2019 iron ore contract, the most active on the Dalian Commodity Exchange, ended the session up 2.7 percent at 626.5 yuan ($93.33) a tonne, the highest close since March 4 and just below the day’s high of 628 yuan.
“Steel mills in China have started ramping up their sintering utilization,” said Darren Toh, a data scientist with Singapore-based steel and iron ore data analytics company Tivlon Technologies.
Sintering machines have reportedly been allowed to restart in some areas in China’s top steelmaking city of Tangshan, which has imposed production restrictions on mills to improve air quality, but this could not be immediately verified.
“Our data analytics model is suggesting that iron ore prices are starting to firm from the second half of March onwards,” Toh said, adding that Tivlon is maintaining its $120 a tonne target price by August this year.
