China September iron ore imports rise on pre-holiday restocking

By Reuters News

Oct 14 (Reuters) - China's iron ore imports in September rose 1.2% from the previous month, data showed on Wednesday, as steelmakers restocked ahead of the week-long National Day holiday and expectations grew that steel demand would improve.

  • The world's largest iron ore consumer brought in 109.82 million metric tons of the key steelmaking ingredient last month, data from the General Administration of Customs showed

  • While imports were higher than in August, they were down 5.6% from the year before

  • Lower ore prices, which were down 5.7% last month , encouraged more booking in part to average out overall procurement costs

  • Also, some miners ramped up shipments last month to meet quarterly guidance and supply from the Simandou project in Guinea picked up, leading to higher monthly imports, said Xie Qingwei, an analyst at consultancy Shanghai Metals Market

  • But real ore demand was weaker amid worsening profitability, with the daily hot metal output averaging 2.36 million tons in September, down 0.7% from the month before, according to Reuters' calculation using data from consultancy Mysteel

  • Only around 7% of Chinese steelmakers were operating at a profit by end-September, compared to 32% in late August and 57% in the same month in 2025, Mysteel data showed

  • In the first nine months of 2026, China's iron ore imports totalled 954.97 million tons, an annual rise of 4.1%

  • Steel exports in September climbed 3.2% month-on-month to 10.49 million tons, above 10 million tons for a fifth straight month, thanks to strong overseas demand

  • Outbound shipments of steel products from January to September totalled 85.64 million tons, an annual decline of 2.6%

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