Australia's Port Hedland iron ore exports all-time high

Australia's Port Hedland has seen iron ore exports expanded to an all-time high for the third month in a row, data from Pilbara Ports Authority shows.
Exports reached 38.4m metric tons in June, as compared to 38mt in May and 35.4mt seen in April.
Arctic Securities analyst Erik Nikolai Stavseth ascribes the continued growth to higher exports to China, where trade officials reported June iron ore imports at 75 million tons, a small increase from May’s 71 million tons.
“Chinese iron ore imports year to date now stands at 452 million tons, suggesting a 0.9% decline year-over-year. This corresponds well with the latest data from World Steel on Chinese steel production, showing a small decline in YTD production from last year,” Stavseth said.
Stavseth cautioned that while lower iron ore price should lead to replacement of domestic Chinese iron ore with imported ore, the historically low prices could result in reductions in global iron ore production and consequently seaborne volumes.

“The record low prices have led several producers to reconsider their production volumes in a largely over supplied market. Fortescue has vowed to stop further increase in production and Vale plans to remove 25 million tons of lower quality ore from the market – but sticks to previous production target.,” he noted.
Port Hedland, which is the world's largest iron ore export facility, handles output from BHP, Fortescue and Atlas Iron, the country's fourth-largest supplier.
Shipments through Port Hedland represented more than half of the country's iron ore exports last year, according to Australian port and government data.