Dalian iron ore futures ended a four-day winning streak on Monday as rising levies on Chinese steel weakened demand prospects for the crucial steelmaking ingredient. However, the decline was tempered by decreasing portside inventories in China.
The most-traded May iron ore contract on China’s Dalian Commodity Exchange (DCE) closed 0.77% lower at 832.5 yuan ($114.95) per metric ton during daytime trading on Monday. Meanwhile, the benchmark March iron ore contract on the Singapore Exchange edged down 0.18% to $108.3 per ton as of 0710 GMT, reflecting ongoing market uncertainty.
Reuters reported that the trade ministry document says that Vietnam is to impose a temporary anti-dumping levy of up to 27.83% on some steel products from China.
Pressured by concerns over a new memorandum signed last week by President Donald Trump, China stocks slipped on Monday, restricting Chinese investments in strategic sectors and escalating trade tensions.
According to Mysteel data, the capacity utilisation rate of the blast furnace steel mills of surveyed blast furnace steel mills declined for the second consecutive week, with daily hot metal production slipping 0.21% week-on-week to 2.28 million tons as of February 20.
Hot metal output is typically used to gauge iron ore demand.
Global iron ore shipments have seen a slight year-on-year decline, impacted by adverse weather conditions in Australia, according to a note from Chinese consultancy Hexun Futures. The firm also expects port inventories to decrease in the coming weeks.
However, SteelHome’s weekly data showed the collapse of the portside iron ore inventories in China, which fell 1.15% to 145.8 million metric tons as of February 21.