Iron Ore-Key index slips as Shanghai rebar hits 4-mth low

Tue Mar 22, 2011 3:48am GMT

By Manolo Serapio Jr. and Ruby Lian

SINGAPORE/QINGDAO, March 22 (Reuters) - Chinese steel rebar futures steadied on Tuesday after drifting to four-month lows earlier in the session amid a murky demand outlook that weighed on spot iron ore prices and forward swaps.

China is the world's biggest steel producer and consumer and traders usually look to the direction in Chinese steel prices when deciding whether or not to buy iron ore, the key material in making steel.

The most traded rebar contract for October delivery on the Shanghai Futures Exchange was up a modest 0.3 percent at 4,669 yuan a tonne by the midday break, after falling to as low as 4,627 yuan earlier, its weakest since Nov. 17.

A number of Chinese iron ore traders have remained worried about steel prices and demand in the short term, and are thus reluctant to make forward bookings with suppliers.

Some of them are also facing difficulty securing bank loans to be able to build their raw material stockpiles after a series of moves by China to tighten liquidity, including another increase in cash reserve requirements for banks.

Traders are still trying to assess the impact of Japan's earthquake and tsunami disaster.

"It seems iron ore prices will not be able to pick up significantly right now as mills and traders still see no obvious signals in increasing iron ore buying given weak steel demand," said an iron ore trader in northern China.

The Steel Index's 62 percent iron ore benchmark .IO62-CNI=SI dropped 0.5 percent to $163.80 a tonne, including freight, on Monday, after two days of gains.

The index, based on spot transactions in China, had lost about 15 percent since hitting record highs in mid-February before regaining some ground last Thursday.

Prices of forward swaps <0#sgxios:> also retreated, with second-quarter prices down after recent gains.

Sam Walsh, Rio Tinto's Iron Ore division chief, told an industry conference in Perth that a softening of iron ore prices was due to liquidity tightening in China.(Editing by Ed Lane)

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Royal Coal Begins Trading on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange

Mar 21, 2011 16:26 ET

TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - March 21, 2011) - Royal Coal Corp. (TSX VENTURE:RDA)(FRANKFURT:RLC) is pleased to announce that its common shares have begun trading on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange under the symbol 'RLC'.

"With our large existing European shareholder base as well as strong overseas investor interest for coal companies like Royal Coal, we are pleased to provide both new and existing shareholder's trading access on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange" commented Mr. Tom Griffis, Chairman of Royal Coal.
About Royal Coal

Royal Coal is a coal exploration and production company, headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada with a regional office in Hazard, Kentucky, U.S.A. whose primary business focus is developing producing surface coal mining operations in the Central Appalachian coal producing region of the United States, which includes parts of West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.(sourced:markewire)

5.9-magnitude quake hits off east coast of Honshu, Japan

Tue, March,2011 12:14:24

TOKYO, March 22 (Xinhua) -- An earthquake measuring 5.9 on the Richter scale hit off east coast of Honshu, Japan, at 12:38 local time (0338 GMT) on Tuesday, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

The epicenter, with a depth of 11.40 km, was initially determined to be at 35.22 degrees north latitude and 141.05 degrees east longitude.

But there were no reports of casualties or damage so far. Japan was hit by a 9.0-magnitude earquake on March 11. Editor: Wang Guanqun

Australian cyclones hit Rio Tinto Q1 iron ore output

Tue, Mar22 13:49:04

SYDNEY, March 22 (Xinhua) -- Global miner Rio Tinto Ltd said on Tuesday its first-quarter iron ore production in Western Australia 's Pilbara region would highlight the impact of the tropical cyclones in February.

Speaking at a conference in Perth on Tuesday, Rio Tinto Iron Ore chief executive Sam Walsh said, "We have only just regained momentum and our quarterly production report will highlight the impact."

Rio Tinto's current Pilbara capacity is 225 million tons a year and it is moving to expand output to 333 million tons a year by the end of 2015.

"We do not expect our expansion to stop at 333," Walsh said.

He told reporters that tight equipment supply from Japan after the recent Japanese earthquake and tsunami has affected on the miners' expansion efforts in terms of cost.

He said the company's Canadian iron ore operations were also expanding quickly to meet demand which was already heightened before the Japanese crisis.

Walsh said the magnitude of reconstruction in Japan was only just being realized.

"It is true to say that recovering, developing and developed economies continue to drive demand for iron ore," he said.

The company's Simandou iron ore mine project in Guinea in West Africa would be developed before the official target date of 2015, Walsh said.

"We are keen to produce tons earlier if infrastructure constraints can be removed," he said.
Editor: Xiong Tong

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World crude steel output climbs 8.8% to 117 mmt in Feb

22 March 2011 at 10:45 IST

BRUSSELS (Commodity Online) : World crude steel production for the 64 countries reporting to the World Steel Association was 117 million metric tons (mmt) in February 2011.

This is 8.8% higher than February 2010, according to a press release.

China’s crude steel production for February 2011 was 54.3 mmt, up 9.7% compared to February 2010. Japan produced 8.9 mmt of crude steel in February 2011, an increase of 5.7% compared to the same month last year. South Korea produced 5.0 mmt of crude steel in February 2011, 25.7% more than February 2010.

In the EU, Germany’s crude steel production for February 2011 was 3.7 mmt, an increase of 7.9% compared to February 2010. Italy’s crude steel production was 2.3 mmt, up 4.9% compared to the same month last year. Spain produced 1.4 mmt of crude steel in February 2011, an increase of 6.4% on February 2010.

Turkey’s crude steel production for February 2011 was 2.5 mmt, an increase of 35.5% compared to February 2010.

The US produced 6.6 mmt of crude steel in February 2011, 5.6% higher than February 2010.

Brazilian crude steel production in February 2011 was 2.7 mmt, an increase of 11.4% on February 2010.

The world crude steel capacity utilisation ratio of the 64 countries in February 2011 was 82.0%, a slight increase from the updated figure of 80.9% for January 2011. Compared to February 2010, the utilisation ratio in February 2011 is 2.7 percentage points higher.
(sourced commodityonline)

India will follow like the Union Pay of China, India card Rupay to replace Visa, MasterCard

Press Trust of India, March 22, 2011 (Mumbai)

After almost two years of planning, the National Payments Corporation has at last finalised the proposed unique India Card which once commercially launched would be an domestic alternative to the global real-time payment processing firms like Visa and MasterCard.

"We have finalised name of the proposed card as Rupay at our board meeting here today. We have also finalised the logo for the same," a senior official of the RBI-set up National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), said.

The official sought not to be named. The official further said the leading financial consultancy firm Ernst & Young(E&Y) will develop and roll out the entire architecture, including the design and software for the Rupay card rollout.

A senior E&Y official confirmed the development to this agency. He further said, the NPCI will initially launch a domestic ATM/debit cards to begin with and then would hit the credit card market later on.

In 2009, the RBI had asked the Indian Banks Association to launch a not-for-profit company and design a rival card, then tentatively called India Card, that meets the requirements of the domestic banks.

And finally, RBI plan is materialising and Rupay will be like the Union Pay of China, which is the domestic real-time payment processing firm for Chinese banks, and was planned to be launched last year.

The commercial launch is expected in a few months, once the systems and network are in place.

Domestic banks now have no option but to tie up with Visa or MasterCard for connectivity between cardholders, merchants and issuing banks not just within the country, but across the globe in the absence of a domestic card.

Every transaction done here using a debit or credit card issued by a domestic bank is routed through network switches owned by Visa or MasterCard, which are based outside the country. But now the Rupay would eliminate the need for this connectivity.

Domestic banks paid around Rs. 500 crore last year as fees to these global card firms for processing debit and credit card payments, 90 per cent of which were domestic deals.

The Rupay initiative entails the setting up of a network switch, which acts as a payment gateway that connects all the ATMs and points-of-sale terminals. The domestic system is meant to gradually replace payment settlement providers like MasterCard and Visa, which now control all payments and settlements that happen through cards.

NPCI is registered as a company with nine public sector, private sector and foreign banks owning stakes. RBI will oversee its operations in the initial years. Thereafter it will function as an independent company regulated by RBI, according to the RBI policy paper on Payment systems vision 2009-12.

"The concept of a domestic payment card (India Card then and now Rupay) and a PoS switch network for issuance and acceptance of payment cards would be looked into. The need for such a system arises from two major considerations (a) the high cost borne by the domestic banks for affiliation with international card associations in the absence of a domestic price setter (b) the connection with international card associations resulting in the need for routing even domestic transactions, which account for more than 90 per cent of the total, through a switch located outside the country," the RBI had said in its vision paper.

As per the latest RBI data, debit card transactions rose 49 per cent to Rs. 3,712.67 crore in January 2011, against Rs. 2,491 crore y-o-y. The number of debit cards in use also rose by 25 per cent in the reporting month to 21.82 crore up from 17.41 crore as on January 31, 2010.

In the April-January period, the total transactions carried out by debit cards jumped by 47.06 per cent, to Rs. 32,029.24 crore, from Rs. 21,779.83 crore in the first 10 months of the last fiscal, said the RBI data.

Against this, credit card transactions rose 28 per cent in January to Rs. 6,934.65 crore, despite a 10 per cent drop in the number of credit cards in circulation. As of January 31, 2011, there were 1.81 crore active credit cards in the country, down from 2.02 crore y-o-y.

During the April-January period of the current fiscal, the total transactions carried out via credit cards increased 21.78 per cent to Rs. 62,335.44 crore as against Rs. 51,188.94 rore in the year-ago period. (NDTV, PTI)

Tags :National Payments Corp of India, India Card, Rupay, Union Pay of China, NCPI, VISA, Master card

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Fortescue says on track to run 55 mln tonne/yr of iron ore by end FY 2011

Tue Mar 22, 2011 4:13am GMT

PERTH, March 22 (Reuters) - Fortescue Metals remains on track to increase its run rate to 55 million tonnes of iron ore per year from its Pilbara operations by the end of fiscal 2011, the company said on Tuesday.

The increase from about 38 million tonne per year rate was a result of expansion work in Western Australia's Pilbara's belt to capture more of China and India's growing demand, Neville Power, Chief Operating Officer of Fortescue Metals Group, said on Tuesday at an industry conference.

"We are running our (mining) tenements hard to bring those tonnes to market," Power said.(Reuters)