“The higher production and shipments from Australian miners over [the fourth quarter] is pretty normal as seen over the years. It is their way of pushing to meet their half-year targets for the financial year,” a Singapore-based trader said.
“If there is some uncontrollable event, then some impact will be felt in the market. Targets [set by miners] are usually missed or seldom do we see a strong performance,” he added.
Rio Tinto announced its third-quarter production results in mid-October, which showed production of 86.4 million tonnes of iron ore on a 100% basis from its Pilbara operations. This was up by 4% from the previous quarter ending in July.
Fellow Australian miner BHP produced 66.04 million tonnes of iron ore in the quarter ended in September, down by 1% from the previous quarter due to maintenance on a car dumper in September, according to its 2021 financial year...
