Quoting from [RANSAE]:



Hi ! this is Ramesh Shankerlal from India, and we are exporters of iron ore fines from india. I would like to know what is the current position of import of iron ore in China. indian iron ore is costly day by day, as the price is increasing, whereas the chinese buyers are asking for low prices knowing that the prices are increasing? Why is it so. They have a very good access to indian suppliers as it is hardly 3 to 4 hours distance from india, where as other iron ore producing countries like Brazil , Mexico, Africa, are far away. Even then they ask for indian iron ore for a lesser price compared to the international prices of the ore.

Dear Ramesh. We are a trading company and most of the buying request comes from China. We do not hold any direct selling mandate, but we are next to mandate from several suppliers. And from all the offers we are getting many of them are with India Orign, but most with Brazil Orign. We have never chosen a India supplier yet because of the pricing. We get lower CIF pricing from Brazil than we get FOB pricing from India. So in my mind I think the question should not e what Chinese buyers are thinking, rather what is Indian sellers thinking. How near India and China is, does not matter when Brazil give better CIF pricing.


And yes we do know that there are many unreal offer floating around, but I am comparing genuine suppliers here.

If Brazil can offer $155/MT CIF China and India quotes $167 FOB Haldia or any India port. What would you choose?


(prices here are fictive and not taken from real offers, just to illustrate the difference)

Another important thing that may impact the constant question for price reduction on Iron Ore from India may be that most of the "scam" offers floating around the internet. The so called $140 offers are listed with Brazil Orign. If buyers get these offers and think they are real, they will of course try to put pressure on the real price on offers coming from India also.