Tuesday, March 2, 2010

China To Wait For Benchmark Price

A report in the influential daily newspaper, the Australian Financial Review, has cited an unidentified source as saying that Chinese steel mills are to wait for the annual benchmark contract price to be settled for iron ore before deciding whether to accept a proposal from one of the world’s largest iron ore miners, BHP Billiton Ltd, to change the method of calculating the contract price.

BHP has supposedly suggested that a system of quarterly or indexed pricing be brought in to replace the current system of annual benchmark prices. For a number of years the benchmark price has been set to coincide with the start of the Japanese financial year on 1 April each year.

No comments: