During
the second quarter, tight iron ore supply from the most
important global producers in Brazil and Australia continued to pressure
prices for the commodity in international markets following catastrophic
events at the beginning of the year.
Recently,
Brazil's Vale managed to secure the return of operations at
some of its mines, halted by court orders after the Brumadinho dam
collapse on January 25, which killed over 200 people. But the increased
output from the Brazilian miner is expected to be limited.
Anglo-Australian
rivals Rio Tinto and BHP also had to deal with
weather-related issues, putting more pressure on prices and the supply in
international markets.
Moody's Investors
Services, in a research report on Monday, increased its 62%-Fe iron ore
price benchmark range to US$60-90/t from the US$45-70/t announced earlier
in the year.
"Our
new price ranges for iron ore reflect our expectation that only limited
incremental new capacity will be added over the next few years,"
Moody's senior VP Carol Cowan said.
"While
higher output from major global miners and Chinese domestic producers will
see prices go down somewhat, supply will not fully recover in the near
future," Cowan added.
Moody's
sees the imbalance slowly improving this year and next, despite an
expected increase in year-on-year output from Australia's top iron ore
producers BHP, Rio Tinto and Fortescue in 2019.
Source:
Bnamericas
|