Iron Ore Superpower Says China’s Import Boom to Level Off

The extraordinary decade-long surge in China’s appetite for iron ore imports is about to level off, according to projections from Australia, the world’s largest shipper of the commodity. The Department of Industry, Innovation and Science said in its quarterly outlook on Monday that global flows into China -- powered by cargoes from miners Rio Tinto Group and BHP Billiton Ltd., as well as Brazil’s Vale SA -- are likely to hold at about 1 billion metric tons all the way out to 2023. That expected plateau follows steady increases in recent years as demand boomed, and China emerged as the world’s No. 2 economy.