Iron Ore 2022: New Opportunities in Crisis, New Business in Change.

Looking ahead to the New Year, 2022 will be "a year of crisis and opportunities" for the iron ore market, as well as a year of "opening new bureau" for domestic iron ore.

First of all, on the supply side, the four mines have little new capacity, mainly concentrated in the second half of the year, and most of them are substitute capacity.

Rio tinto, for its part, will start operating Western Turner Syncline 2 (30 million tonnes of capacity) in November 2021, followed by Gudai-Darri in March 2022, and will reach 43 million tonnes of capacity by 2023.

For BHP, South 7.5%, the alternative to the Farndy mine, is ready to start production in May 2021 and is on track to grow to 80m tonnes over the next three years.

For FMG, Eliwana, which started production in December 2020, will gradually increase production in the future and replace fire tailings. FMG is also working on Iron Bridge Phase 2 and Queens Valley, both of which are due to start production in 2022, but with limited growth in 2022. Iron Bridge Phase 2 is due to start production in December 2022 and will provide high quality ore with a 67% Iron taste. It will produce 22 million tons a year, but will not be fully released until 2023.

Vale is still in the recovery phase of capacity and new projects take a long time to land. The S11D silicone crusher will be installed in the first half of 2022, further boosting the mine's production capacity, which is expected to increase by 10 million tonnes in the second half of 2022. In addition, Serra Norte's Gelado project will come online in the second half of 2022.

Secondly, domestic ore, is expected to have incremental, in 2022, in the case of downward test cost support, domestic fine powder output or fluctuation is not big.

Overall, global iron ore supply is set to ease over the next two years, just as the iron ore market is at a crossroads.

On February 7, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment jointly issued the "guidance on promoting the high-quality development of iron and Steel industry" officially released, to accelerate the transformation of iron and steel industry quality, efficiency and power, to ensure the safety and stability of the industrial chain and supply chain, promote the overall improvement of quality and efficiency.

On February 9, the National Development and Reform Commission issued a statement, in which the National Development and Reform Commission and the State Administration for Market Regulation jointly held talks with iron ore information enterprises, and warned relevant enterprises to carefully verify and be accurate before releasing market and price information, not to fabricate and publish false price information, not to fabricate and spread price increase information, and not to bid up prices.

On February 11, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) issued a statement that the NDRC and the State Administration for Market Regulation will send a joint research team to some commodity exchanges and key ports to carry out supervision and research on the iron ore market, and severely crack down on fabricating and spreading information on price rises, hoarding, price gouging and malicious speculation.

In the first week after the Spring Festival, relevant departments issued successive documents, which shows that they attach great importance to the iron ore market in the New Year, cultivate new opportunities in the crisis and open new bureau in the changing situation. In 2022, opportunities and challenges coexist.