Slow restoration of demand for steel in China presses on the price of iron ore - Rio Tinto

The world leader of the Rio Tinto LTD mining industry states that the price of iron ore will be under pressure in the second half of this year amid the slow -down growth in steel production in China. Reuters writes about this.

The Australian Rio Tinto, the second largest company extracting iron ore after the Brazilian Vale, pursued an aggressive policy of expanding mining assets all last year, even after doubts about the future demand from China were voiced.

"We see that the slowdown in demand from the steel-glood sector has become inevitable, and this will exert pressure on the price of iron ore," says Greg Greg lilleman at the Tuesday press conference, the head of the Pilbar branch of RIO.

“We think that in the second half of this year a decrease will begin, which may continue to continue, but today prices will remain at a fairly high level,” he added.

The representative of the BHP Billiton, who spoke at this conference, joined the opinion of Mr. Dilleman and added that the prices for iron ore in the short term will be stably high and Chinese demand for now where to grow. Without highlighting iron ore, the expected increase in demand from China to the main raw materials will grow by 2-4% per year.

In the wake of fears that the jerk in the Chinese economy, announced by its new government, will not take place, the price of iron ore with 62% of the iron last week decreased by 10% - to $ 134.60/ton.

Greg lilleman said that Rio Tinto plans to increase global production and iron ore production by another 15% this year, up to 290 million tons, and long -term targets were seen at the level of 360 million tons by 2015.

“Of course, we still predict an increase in demand for steel over the next 5-10 years by an average of 3% per year and reaching a peak of 1 billion tons by 2030,” says Rio Tinto representative.