BEIJING- Dalian iron ore futures extended gains for the fourth day in a row on Thursday, supported by improved steel margins, production resuming and the persistent low inventory at Chinese steel mills.
A survey of 114 mills showed inventory of imported sintered ore fell for a third consecutive week, including a near 1 percent week-on-week decline to 24.19 million tons as of May 18, according to consultancy Mysteel.
That brings the total decline since late April to 7.6 percent, according to Reuters calculation based on Mysteel data.
A few mills in North China’s Shanxi province had restarted operations of blast furnaces that had been suspended earlier, consultancy Shanghai Metals Market (SMM) said in a report.
The blast furnace capacity utilization rate among surveyed mills climbed to 94.05 percent as of May 17, from 93.73 percent in the previous week, SMM data showed.
The most-traded September iron ore on the Dalian Commodity Exchange (DCE) traded 2.18 percent higher at 748.5 yuan ($108.29) a tons, the highest since April 20.
