Iron ore prices to fall over next 10 years1 Nov 2023 11:46
Fitch Solutions subsidiary BMI last week signalled to miners that things would be much tougher in a decade’s time when Chinese demand for iron ore was lower.
“Over the longer term, we expect iron ore prices to remain on a multi-year downtrend, with prices forecast to decline to $US50 a tonne by 2032,” BMI said in a note.
Miners say they are aware of the long-term challenges facing steel demand as China shifts and they seek to diversify their operations.
BHP Group reckons annual output has reached a plateau just above a billion tons each year that will stretch into 2024. Analysts at Capital Economics say demand and supply probably peaked in 2020.
Rio Tinto Group CEO Jakob Stausholm said last week that the past two decades of steel consumption growth was probably coming to an end.
“We are foreseeing that the peak steel demand in China is about to be reached,” he said during an interview at Bloomberg headquarters in New York. “Not because the Chinese economy is not growing, but just because of the maturity it has reached.”
Long-term, China’s demand for Australian iron ore will diminish as the economy changes tack after years of infrastructure spending.
“If they do what they say they want to do, which is become a more consumer-orientated services economy, and they stop their massive construction building, then iron ore prices will fall because there won’t be demand any more,” says Michael Shoebridge, a founder of Strategic Analysis Australia and a former senior Defence Department official.