Iron ore stocks at China's major ports slid marginally to 74.52 million tonnes in the week to May 1, Chinica Shipbrokers Ltd said in a report, but massive imports
continued to choke two of the country's largest hubs.
Iron stocks at China's two largest iron ore ports, based in the eastern province of Shandong, have been around or above their stock capacities for the past months, despite stocks falling by 300,000 tonnes in Rizhao.
China's iron ore appetite has been boosted in the past several years, as the world's largest steel making country saw rampant growth in capacity fuelled by an economic boom that ran out of steam.
China's Shougang Group, parent of Shougang Iron and Steel and China's sixth-largest steel maker, will open its new steel mill, which has a design capacity of 4.85 million tonnes a year, in late May. Late last month, Angang Steel Co Ltd, another
flagship mill in China, started production in a new blast furnace that will add more than 3 million tonnes of pig iron ore production to the company.
The country's central government vowed on Monday to further downsize its steel capacities as massive oversupply raised challenges during the ongoing global financial crisis that has slashed demand for industrial products.
Here is a table of iron ore stocks as of May 1:
MAY 1 74.52 million tonnes (mt) (-171,000) (-0.2% on week)
APRIL 24 74.69mt (-704,000) (+1%)
APRIL 17 73.98mt (+1,534,000) (+2%)
APRIL 10 72.45mt (-100,000) (-0.1%)
APRIL 3 72.55mt (+1,033,000) (+1%)
MARCH 27 71.52mt (+1,980,000) (+3%)
MARCH 20 69.54mt (+1,053,000) (+2%)
MARCH 13 64.52mt (+1,994,000) (+3%)
MARCH 6 62.53mt (+3,397,000) (+6%)
FEB 27 59.13mt (+827,000) (+1%)
FEB 19 58.30mt (+174,000) (+0.3%)
FEB 13 58.13mt (-2,028,000) (-3%)
FEB 6 60.16mt (-210,000) (+0.4%)
JAN 23 59.95mt (-1,214,000) (-2%)
JAN 16 61.16mt (-648,000) (-1%)
JAN 9 61.81mt (-812,000) (-1%)
DEC 26 62.62mt (+310,000) (+0.5%)
Source: Reuters
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