Chinese iron ore inventories continue to rise

Iron ore prices concluded a challenging August slightly above $100 per tonne in Singapore but appeared quite battered.

Despite a modest increase of approximately 27 US cents during the month, prices also dipped to around $US92 per tonne.

62 Fe ore finished the month at $US100.90 per tonne on the SGX trading platform in Singapore, compared to $US100.63 per tonne at the end of July.

Chinese iron ore inventories, already at multi-year highs, provided no relief and, in fact, grew.

The weekly Mysteel survey of stocks at China's 45 largest ports revealed a significant increase last week, following four weeks of small but steady declines.

Mysteel reported that total inventories of imported iron ore stockpiled at China's major 45 ports surged by 3.4 million tonnes, or 2.3%, last week from the previous week, reaching 153.7 million tonnes as of August 29.

This marked the highest level since April 2022.

Contributing to the substantial week-over-week increase in stocks were the rise in vessel cargo unloading and slower ore outflows from these ports to end users.

Mysteel noted that the pace of ship arrivals accelerated last week, with the total volume expanding by 2.2 million tonnes, or 9.3%, week-over-week to 25.7 million tonnes. Conversely, as of August 29, there were 98 iron ore vessels queuing at the berths of these ports awaiting unloading, 10 fewer than a week earlier.