SHANGHAI - Baosteel, China's largest iron and steel maker, said Monday it had agreed with Australian mining group Rio Tinto on a price increase of up to 96.5 percent for iron ore in 2008, nearly double that of 2007.
Baosteel agreed as early as in February on a 65 percent price rise for iron ore imports from Brazilian miner Vale, the world's largest.
Rio Tinto and larger rival BHP Billiton have then required for a "freight premium", claiming that it costs less to ship iron ore from Australia to China.
Chinese steel makers have accepted huge price rises for six consecutive years, driven up by huge increases in demand.
China imported 1.34 billion tons of iron ore between 2003 and 2007, 42 percent of the total world shipments in the five years.
The country's crude steel output more than doubled to 490 million tons in 2007 from 220 million tons in 2003.
No comments:
Post a Comment