Following the announcement by Australian mining company BHP Billiton last week that it had completed lengthy negotiations on a long-term iron ore agreement with China, Chinese officials this week notified Chinese steel mills that they could use BHP iron ore, which had been banned since late last year. This will help reduce BHP's fine stocks, which have been delayed in ports for months.
Iron ore futures on the Dalian Commodity Exchange (DCE) fell 0.89 percent to 780.5 yuan per tonne ($113.8 per tonne) on April 28 amid expected supply weakness as China Mineral Resources Group (CMRG) signed a contract to sell iron ore. negotiations with BHP, as stated in the announcement made by BHP to the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) on April 22. Prices will refer to quarterly prices, which will be about $80-90/ton. Meanwhile, the share of settlement of transactions in yuan will be increased to 50 percent (rumored, in the absence of an official statement yet), which is higher than the 30 percent agreed by BHP at the end of 2025. For the first time, BHP has agreed to include the Port Yuan spot index of the Beijing Iron Ore Trading Center (COREX), Mysteel and other Chinese domestic indexes in the pricing system under long-term agreements.
In August 2025, the two sides began negotiations on long-term iron ore prices for 2026.
Australia's third largest iron ore producer, Fortesque Metal Group, has also recently been in talks with China.
The reference price of SteelOrbis for Australian small change with 62 percent Fe decreased today by 0.6 dollars per ton, to 108.8 dollars per ton CFR. The more popular varieties with an Fe content of 61% were valued at $106.7/t CFR
. On April 28, 46 transactions totaling 588,500 tons of iron ore were signed on the Corex platform, indicating that demand is still quite stable. In particular, 50,000 tons of Minmetals standard fines with an iron content of 61.5 percent were sold at 775 yuan/ton (113 US dollars/ton) for delivery to Caofeidian Port, and 30,100 tons of Fe fines with a content of 60.13 percent were sold at 775 yuan/ton (113 US dollars/ton) for delivery to the port of Tianjin
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