CISA Special Consultant: Miners Negotiate With Individual Chinese Steelmakers
Written on February 22, 2011 by Maragaret Harrison
BEIJING -(Dow Jones)- Global miners have started direct negotiations with individual Chinese steelmakers for 2011 annual iron ore prices, and are pressing for monthly index-linked iron ore pricing, the special consultant to the quasi-official China Iron & Steel Association said Thursday.
The iron ore pricing system is “unfair and monopolistic,” Luo Bingsheng said during a regular association press briefing.
One of the major miners, BHP Billiton (BHP.AU), recently raised ore offer prices to $188 a metric ton from $155/ton and didn’t give customers any chance to argue, according to CISA.
Last year, global miners switched to a quarterly pricing system for iron ore in talks with Chinese steelmakers, abandoning a 40-year-old annual benchmark pricing on the back of rising demand for the raw material and volatile global commodity prices.
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