China iron ore imports rise on pre-holiday restocking

Rio Tinto and Chinalco will be positioning their drills in Mainland China, the two companies announced today, in a new exploration joint venture to operate under the name Chinalco Rio Tinto Exploration Co. Ltd. (CRTX). According to a press release issued by Rio Tinto, the primary focus of CRTX will be copper exploration, with coal and potash to be considered later.

The world's biggest consumer of steel is ready to raise the stakes. Steel demand in China is expected to rise by around 25% by the year 2015, to a huge 750 million metric tonnes. To ensure an adequate supply position, China is set to create three iron ore mining groups, with an output capacity of 100 million tonnes each. Six other groups with a capacity of 30 million tonnes are to be cobbled together to ensure steady supplies. Iron ore is the principal raw material used to make steel.

Top coal consumer China should see import demand more than double in the next four years and India will be close behind as both hoover up supplies on international markets to feed rapidly growing power industries, industry executives said on Monday. China's thermal coal imports could rise to 200 million tonnes in 2015 from around 90 million tonnes in 2011, Neil Dhar, executive vice president of trading house Noble Group, told the Coaltrans Asia conference.

Reuters reports: China wants to help build nuclear power generation in East Africa, uranium mining and investment company IBI Corp said in a statement after meeting Chinese officials in Beijing, revealing China's undimmed appetite for overseas nuclear expansion despite the Japanese nuclear crisis this year. IBI, which has uranium-prospective land in Uganda, said its director, A.J. Coffman, held an "encouraging meeting... with the relatively new umbrella organization overseeing China's research and development of Generation 3 and Generation 4 nuclear power plant designs."

China's Baoshan Iron & Steel Co Ltd expects to receive regulatory approval for its coastal Zhanjiang project this year, Chairman He Wenbo said on Tuesday, despite government resolve to extend a fight against overcapacity. "We will try to obtain approval this year, and are starting to build a raw materials dock," He, also president of parent Baosteel Group, told reporters on the sidelines of a company event.

China's rare earths exports in April were 53% down on a year earlier and 12.6% from the March figure, yet export value per tonne rose ten-fold, customs data showed on Monday. China, which controls about 97% of rare earth output, has angered customers in Japan, the United States and Europe by clamping down on production and sale of the 17 rare earth elements, citing a need to clean up highly polluting production processes and to stop illegal exports.

"Everyone who has money is rushing to invest in iron ore," Baosteel Group chairman, Xu Lejiang said on Friday, warning that supply may outstrip demand “sooner than expected” pushing prices down in the process. Brazil’s Vale, and Australian heavyweights BHP and Rio Tinto have some $45bn slated for new mines. The cash price of 62%-iron ore shipped to China's Tianjin port has almost tripled from Nov. 21, 2008 when data became available, according to the Steel Index.

Two Chinese state-owned companies have invested over $73m for a roughly 30% interest in privately-owned Century Iron's plans to export iron ore extracted at several properties in Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador in eastern Canada. The transactions are part of $115.5m of financing arranged by Century Iron through private placements and the amalgamation of Century Iron Mines Corp. and Century Iron Ore Holdings.

Large copper smelters in China settled term treatment and refining charges with global miner BHP Billiton Ltd at $90 per tonne and 9 cents per pound respectively for delivery in the second half of this year, a smelter source said on Friday. The second-half treatment and refining charges, or TC/RC, will nearly double from the same period of 2010 and represent a rise of 25 percent from about $72 for the first half of 2011. The term TC/RC for the full year 2010 was $46.5 and 4.65 cents.