Iron ore stocks climb on falling exports, fragile demand

Inventory of iron ore is going up at mine heads with the lack of enough demand to absorb lower grade fines and downtrend seen in exports. 

At the end of 2016-17, 148.66 million tonnes of iron ore had accumulated at the mine pit heads and the figure is estimated to breach 150 million tonnes by 2017-18 end. The stock is made up mostly by low-grade fines for which there is no demand in the domestic market. 

"Iron ore fines are mostly getting piled up in Odisha and Jharkhand as lower grade fines (iron content between 58 and 62 per cent) could not