Ocean shipments of iron ore to China are expected to surge to 650 million tonnes in 2010, a researcher at a state think-tank said on Monday, up from an estimate of nearly 400 million tonnes this year as China's steel industry booms. Yin Zhen, with a research unit of the National Development and Reform Commission, the state planning agency, gave no current figures for iron ore shipments, but analysts have said China accounts for nearly half the world's iron ore ocean shipping volume, which is expected to rise more than 8 percent to 780 million tonnes in 2007. China's ocean shipments of iron ore will expand further to 800 million tonnes by 2020, Yin told a conference in Shanghai. He also forecast that ocean shipments of coal to China would reach 1 billion tonnes in 2010 and 1.2 billion tonnes in 2020, while the volume for crude oil was seen increasing to 300 million tonnes in 2010 and 400 million tonnes in 2020.
China imported 313.75 million tonnes of iron ore in the first 10 months of this year, up 16.5 percent from the same period last year, to feed its expanding steel sector, which is forecast to produce more than 500 million tonnes of crude steel in 2007.
Strong demand and rising freight charges have boosted the import prices of iron ore and increased the production costs of Chinese steel mills, pressuring their profit margins and pushing them to purchase more low-grade domestically produced ore.
The Baltic Exchange's dry sea freight index, a measure of shipping rates for commodities on different routes and ship sizes, hit a record high at 11,039 points on Nov. 13. It had eased to 10,148 points on Monday.
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