Market supported by Chinese activity recovering

摘要

The Platts 62% IODEX continues to be extremely resilient, supported by a return of downstream activity in China, particularly in construction, and also low port stocks in China. The benchmark averaged $88.2/ mt CFR in March, up from $86.4 in February and averaged $83.66/mt over the first half of April. With supply picking up from the majors and the Chinese steel market slowly drawing down extremely high steel inventories, there could be some downside on prices if Chinese mills have to trim output. But typically they are extremely reluctant to do this and therefore provided construction and manufacturing get back up to speed, supported by infrastructure, prices could remain supported around these levels.