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NMDC cuts high-grade ore price as demand falls

Domestic demand has dropped, tracking a global trend

Bloomberg Mumbai
Last Updated : Apr 03 2013 | 11:07 PM IST
NMDC Ltd, India's biggest iron-ore producer, cut the prices of some grades of the steelmaking ingredient for the third time in 2013 as domestic demand slumped. The shares declined.

The state-owned miner lowered the price of the high-grade lump ore by about seven per cent this month, Finance Director Swaminathan Thiagarajan said on Wednesday in a text message. Low-grade fines were unchanged from last month, he said.

Worst performer
The company, the worst performer on the S&P BSE Metal Index on Wednesday, fell by 4.4 per cent to Rs 130.20 at the close in Mumbai. The Metal Index fell 2.1 per cent.

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NMDC, based in Hyderabad, has cut prices by more than 15 per cent since January as domestic demand fell, tracking a global trend. Benchmark prices in China dropped by nine per cent last month, according to The Steel Index.

Ore prices may fall to $100 a tonne in the third and fourth quarters next year, from $127 a tonne in the three months ending June, James Glenn and Rob Brooker, analysts at National Australia Bank Ltd said in a report on Wednesday. New mine supplies and slowing demand may push the price down below $100 a tonne, Bloomberg Industries analysts Kenneth Hoffman and Andrew Cosgrove wrote on March 28.

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First Published: Apr 03 2013 | 10:31 PM IST

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