Iron ore weakness to continue into 2025 and beyond, says Fitch Solutions’ BMI
Looking beyond 2024-2025, BMI analysts maintained their view that iron ore prices will likely follow a multi-year downtrend.
Benchmark 62% spot iron ore entered China’s Golden Week holiday at $104.20 a tonne recovering from the worst quarterly performance in history.
On Monday upbeat Chinese traders – betting that recents stimulus measures in the world’s second largest economy would spur demand – came back from the break and chased the price of the commodity up 6% to $110.40.
The steelmaking ingredient has now clawed back more than 25% of its value since hitting a three-and-a-half year low of $86.70 on September 5.
Iron ore followed the performance of the world’s most most active steel contract – rebar for January delivery on the Shanghai Futures Exchange – which hit a high of 3,668 yuan ($580) a tonne on Monday, its best price in more than seven weeks.
Bloomberg on Monday quoted Paul Gray, principal iron-ore market analyst with research company Wood Mackenzie as saying China may need a between 45 million and 55 million tonnes of additional iron ore next year due to increased crude-steel production and restocking by steel mills.
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