Schadenfreude as Chinese steel mills ask for help from Rio and BHP

No doubt, when BHP iron ore marketing executives were summoned to a video call with the China Iron and Steel Association last week, they made the right sympathetic noises about the near-70 per cent increase in iron ore prices this year but, given the backdrop of the widespread Chinese trade sanctions on Australian products and on their own coal exports, one suspects it wouldn’t have been heartfelt.

It isn’t clear what CISA expects the Australian producers to do about prices that have soared from less than $US90 a tonne at the start of this year to more than $US150 a tonne, which has more than offset the impact of the bans on coal, barley, wine, lobsters and lamb on Australia’s exports to China.