China stainless steel mogul fights to avoid a second collapse
A debt crisis is threatening the future of one of the world’s top stainless steel producers, Jiangsu Delong Nickel Industry.
Long held assumptions about the direction and dynamics of the iron ore market have been severely tested in 2014.
After hitting a high of $158.90 in February, the industry was jolted on March 10, when iron ore suffered the worst one-day decline since the 2008-2009 financial crisis, cratering 8.3% in a single session.
The recovery from there was swift, but by June 16 the steelmaking raw material was sliding again, hitting a low of $89 a tonne.
Iron ore slowly clawed back some of those losses for a 2% gain in July breaking a six-month losing streak.
But August brought renewed selling and on Tuesday, the price of benchmark Northern China 62% Fe imports slid to $88.90, the lowest since September 5, 2012.
Iron ore touched $86.70 then, but quickly recovered to end 2012 above $150.
The market seems very different now.
The commodity is set to trade below $100 on a quarterly basis for the first time since 2009.
The more than 33% slump in the price this year is blamed on a surge in supply and a slowdown in China which consumes more than two-thirds of the 1.2 billion seaborne trade.
No-one is predicting a move back to the early days of the iron ore trade when the price, set during secretive annual contract negotiations, never strayed from $10 a tonne for more than 20 years.
But it is worth noting that back in 2007 the commodity was still trading at $36 a tonne.
And the all time high of $192 in February 2011 now seems like nothing more than an aberration.
Source: The Steel Index
Comments
Itabirite
Less than $90 = doom for new Lab Trough players and very tough times for current ones.