BHP Billiton intends to double the price of iron ore for bidding ore sales

“There is no demand for us to move to monthly pricing, but from BHP Billiton's point of view, it is clear that we hope that steel mills will purchase iron ore from them in a shorter settlement.” An international trader at a Huazhong Steel Plant disclosed to the China Securities Journal that BHP Billiton is actively promoting Ore tender way to sell iron ore. With the expansion of production, BHP Billiton plans to sell one or more ships of iron ore to China every week by way of tender. Currently, only two weeks are available. Analysts said that in the iron ore market that is currently unilaterally up, the miners' approach is to more closely follow up with changes in the market and enjoy higher returns. At the same time, it also has a positive effect on ore prices.

Bidding for supply of mines to double China Securities Journal reporter learned from the steel mills that it is difficult to obtain quarterly prices for steel mills that have signed iron ore supply agreements with BHP Billiton in recent years. “If you choose a quarterly price, it is easy to change to monthly, but if you want to reverse the operation, it will not be allowed.” The steel maker mentioned above that the choices of BHP Billiton and various steel mills' settlement methods have always been different. The most flexible among the miners. According to reports, except for Baosteel's old customers who signed a 5-10 year contract with BHP Billiton to still perform quarterly prices, BHP Billiton chose monthly settlement or spot settlement for customers who have signed 2-3 years in the past two years. "According to BHP Billiton's words, monthly settlement is more conducive to their use of the Platts index for swaps."

However, Chinese customers have discovered that BHP Billiton is actively promoting a new ore settlement method – ship-time tendering. “BHP Billiton will now take out a shipbuilding mine (approximately 170,000 tons) every two weeks to invite tenders for contracted customers. With the current market, every tender is very popular.” According to steel makers, the mine has been added in recent years. With the promotion of production, BHP Billiton and other large miners have agreed that more ore products outside the mine can be sold to the spot market, and the whole ship tendering is one of the ways to move closer to the spot market.

It is understood that due to the new production capacity has not yet reached full production, BHP Billiton is currently limited to the total amount of iron ore sold to China by way of tendering, they eventually hope to be able to do a weekly shipbuilding mine in the form of tender sales To the Chinese market.

Hu Kai, an analyst at Union Metals, said that at present, the total amount of iron ore sold by the three major miners to China by bidding is about 15% of the Chinese market supply, and the total amount of this sales method may follow. Miners’ production expansion has improved. “Miners will control the overall proportion of bidding.” Hu Kai believes that although the iron ore market is currently unilaterally up, but from the supply side's point of view still wants to stabilize the supply, so it will not rush to significantly increase the tender proportion.

Iron ore ** out of the United Metals data show that on January 13 the southern Brazil CIF price of 188-190 US dollars / ton, Australia 62% grade ore CIF price of 177 US dollars / ton. According to tracking by Lange Steel, on January 7, the inventory of iron ore in 19 ports across the country rose to 80.9 million tons, which exceeded 80 million tons for the first time since 2007 and has increased 1.39 million tons from last week's inventory. .

Zhang Lin, Lange Steel Information Research Center believes that this is actually a vague transmission of a signal that domestic traders are more optimistic about the iron ore market that has continued its upward trend since mid-July, and that the mentality of waiting for goods to rise is even more pressing. The ore market is in an optimistic mood.

It is in this optimism that the miners are chasing short-term pricing. "This kind of market will prompt domestic steel companies to have a higher impulse to invest in ore swaps," Hu Kai told the China Securities Journal. A steel miller is frank, BHP Billiton has also suggested to the customer to use the Platts index to hedge.

According to reports, BHP Billiton is actively initiating bids and quotations for each ship's tendered mines to the Platts Index, and Platts will use this data in each of its reports. As an important basis for the conclusion of its index. "This kind of operation is nothing more than making the Platts Index more and more credible. This is exactly what BHP Billiton wants to see," said the steel mills.

According to another report, at present, the Singapore Commodity Exchange is actively promoting iron ore, in order to get rid of the current situation that international iron ore financial derivatives market has only off-exchange products and lack of on-floor trading. The behind-the-scenes promoter is still BHP Billiton. .