At present, on the one hand, the spot price of chromium is stable, iron ore The supply and demand structure of Shijiazhuang has been continuously improved. From the basic point of view, the port inventory has hit a new low for nearly a year, the supply price is high and the quantity is reduced, and the demand remains relatively strong. On the other hand, from the perspective of basis, the volume is significantly discounted to spot. As the delivery month approaches, it is expected that the basis will be repaired and the volume will be adjusted upward. Therefore, in terms of operation, it is recommended to make a short term long 1901 contract.
Port inventory hit a new low in the year
Iron ore stocks at major ports continued to decline, and by the end of this week, stocks had hit a new low this year. According to the latest data of Mysteel, the iron ore inventory of 45 ports nationwide was 142.7301 million tons, down 88.6 million tons month on month from the previous week; The average daily port dredging volume was 2.8729 million tons, down 89700 tons. In terms of weight, Australia Mine was 80.4408 million tons, down 24100 tons; Brazil mine was 32.2071 million tons, down 206 thousand tons. In October, because Rio Tinto and BHP had many overhauls, the shipment volume in Australia dropped significantly. In Brazil, the shipment volume in the third quarter increased significantly, so the shipment volume in October fell slightly. In terms of data, the total shipments of the four major mines in October were 100.25 million tons, down 3 million tons month on month. The volume of the three largest mines in Australia sent to China in October was 55.096 million tons, down 500000 tons month on month and 3.63 million tons year on year.
In terms of variety, the quantity of mainstream high-quality Australian flour sent to China in October was 25.3425 million tons, down 1.44 million tons month on month; The volume of mainstream block ores sent to China was 9.004 million tons, down 281000 tons; The volume of low-grade fine ore sent to China was 12.47 million tons, basically stable from last month.
According to the data on the arrival of foreign mines released last Wednesday, the total number of arrivals from 26 ports nationwide was 20.211 million tons, a month on month decrease of 2.222 million tons, of which the number of mainstream high-quality Macao powder arriving in Hong Kong decreased by 828000 tons, the number of low-grade Macao powder arriving in Hong Kong decreased by 1.051 million tons, and the number of mainstream Macao powder arriving in Hong Kong increased slightly. The shipment situation shows that the total volume of shipments from Australia and Brazil in the previous week significantly decreased by 3.975 million tons month on month. Among them, Rio Tinto only sent 1 million tons to China due to the early railway maintenance. BHP was also affected by the early train derailment event, and the shipment volume dropped to the lowest point in the year. The shipment volume of Vale in Brazil also decreased by nearly 1 million tons month on month. The total shipment volume of Brazil and Australia is far lower than that of the same period last year.
On the whole, due to the significant decline in both the shipment volume and the arrival volume of external mines, and the continuous maintenance of Australian berths, the shipment volume may be difficult to recover in the short term, and the port resources are expected to remain tight.
Weakening of pessimistic market expectations
The peak shift production policy in the heating season of 2018, due to the greater emphasis on "no one size fits all" and the flexibility of the local government, the time for the most stringent production restriction expectations has passed, and the weak price of iron ore in the early stage may have reflected this expectation, which is expected to gradually repair the undervalued iron ore price as time goes by.
Since October 2018, the environmental protection production restriction season has entered, and there is no sign of steel plant production restriction for a long time. The demand of local steel mills is still strong. The slow pace of production restriction has become a consensus, and the demand for iron ore is still strong. The blast furnace operating rate and capacity utilization rate did not decline significantly, and the Beijing Tianjin Hebei region limited production slowly. After the Expo, the demand for iron ore in the Yangtze River Delta region will further increase. At the same time, in winter, there is a demand for winter storage in steel mills around the country, which will further increase the demand for iron ore.
With the fine-tuning of various policies in the near future, the policy will fall short of expectations. The pessimistic expectation of long-term demand for iron ore also needs to be revised. Overall, for the demand side, the overall performance is better, and will gradually recover in the later period.
High basis difference will be repaired
At present, the iron ore panel pricing is still targeted at medium grade Australian ores such as Jinbuba and PB. According to the real-time price accounting, the iron ore panel price is underestimated. At the same time, with Jinbuba accounting, the import profit window has not yet opened. We believe that the deviation from the current price difference will be gradually repaired in the future.
On the basis of the stability of spot goods, the basis is significantly enlarged. From the perspective of supply and demand fundamentals, we believe that it is difficult for spot prices to fall significantly in the fourth quarter, the current high basis will need to be repaired, and the later probability is still the logic of futures upward repair discount.
Editor in charge: Zhang Yao
