Iron ore prices slipped late last week from three-month highs on Thursday but still finished the first week of the new financial year with a small gain.
The SGX trading platform saw the price of 62% Fe fines close down 3% on Friday at $US110.25. This was still up $US4 per tonne from the June 28 finish of $US106.35.
The fall followed news that iron ore stocks held at China’s 45 biggest ports edged closer to a very high 150 million tonnes last week.
Chinese raw materials website Mysteel said its weekly survey showed a 634,000-tonne rise in stocks to 149.9 million tonnes last Thursday.
That was 17% above the figure for the same date a year ago, the website said.
The rise was due to more ships arriving to discharge their ore than previously estimated.
Mysteel noted that by July 4, 94 vessels were waiting for their turns to unload at these ports, six more than the previous week and nine more than two weeks ago.
