Iron Ore Routed in Woeful Week as Questions Stack Up on China
- Environmental curbs ‘having a serious impact,’ Sinosteel says
- Investors shun risk assets amid rising tensions over N. Korea
A worker takes a sample of molten steel from an arc furnace in the smelting shop at the Oskol Elektrometallurgical Plant (OEMK) steel mill, operated by Metalloinvest Holding Co., in Stary Oskol, Russia, July 14, 2017. The new hot briquetted iron (HBI) production line at the Lebedinsky mine in Russia has an output capacity of 1.8m tons per year, a spokeswoman said by phone.
Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/BloombergIron ore’s rounding off a woeful week on another soft note as persistent concern about demand in China fuses with expectations of rising supply and falling steel futures to hurt prices. A risk-off mood among investors as North Korean tensions simmered compounded the damage.
The benchmark spot price has tumbled 12 percent this week, the worst performance since May 2016. In China, futures on the Dalian Commodity Exchange have slumped into a bear market and capped a fourth week of declines, the longest in five months, while Singapore’s SGX AsiaClear contracts are chalking up a weekly loss of almost 10 percent.