India’s iron ore price for cash sales to China may rise about 4 per cent this month as supplies shrink from one of India’s biggest producing states following a government directive to mines to halt work.
Prices might climb to $110 a tonne by the November-end from $106 at present, RK Sharma, secretary general of the Federation of Indian Mineral Industries, said today. The government of Orissa, which exports about 13 per cent of the country’s ore, issued notices to 69 companies, including ore mines, because of environment concerns, Ashok Mohadeo Rao Dalwai, the state government’s steel and mines secretary, said today.
Total iron ore imports by China, the world’s biggest buyer, rose 37 per cent to 514.8 million tonnes in the first 10 months of 2009 from a year earlier, the customs office said on November 11.
Cash prices for Indian 63.5 per cent benchmark iron ore exported to China rose above $100 this week on higher freight costs, increased Chinese demand and disruptions to Indian supply, Commonwealth Bank of Australia said yesterday.
“Imported fines prices could hold these levels or increase further in the short term if Indian authorities continue their clamp down on licenses and permits in the iron ore export sector,” Commonwealth Bank analysts David Moore and Lachlan Shaw said in a report.