Murchison locks in iron ore sales at 58 dollars per tonne

摘要

SYDNEY - Australian iron ore junior Murchison Metals has sold the first year's production of 1.2 million tonnes of lump ore from its Jack Hills Stage 1 mine, at an average price of 58 dollars per tonne fob to four Chinese steelmakers. Murchison secured the agreements with BAAO (Tianjin) Mining Co, Tangshan Danyang, Delong Steel and Rizhao Steel. The price represents a premium on the 2005 benchmark iron ore price of 51 dollars per tonne for BHP Billiton's premium lump product, and 40 dollars per tonne for BHP's premium Newman fines. Murchison's ore is roughly 70 percent lump and 30 percent fines, according to CFO Trevor Matthews. "There is no price differential for lump and fines in the Chinese market, because they have to crush the ore to feed it to their processing plants," he told MB.