Bloomberg reported that China, buyer of 65% of the world’s iron ore cargoes, expanded the destinations it got the commodity from this year with the first reported spot shipments from Oman, the Philippines and Sierra Leone.
According to data from Clarkson Plc, Fourteen Capesize vessels, the largest dry bulk ships used to transport iron ore, were hired on single cargo charters to China from the three countries in the first 51 weeks of 2012.
According to Clarkson, Four were booked to carry a total of 720,000 metric tonne of ore from Subic Bay in the Philippines while the same number of vessels shipped 660,000 tonne from Pepel in Sierra Leone. Six transported 890,0000 tonnes from Sohar, Oman. All were hired to take cargoes to China , which don’t cover shipments under long term charters.
Vale SA started operating a floating transshipment station at Subic Bay in February that offloads the steelmaking commodity from its largest vessels onto smaller ships. The Rio de Janeiro based miner also delivers ore to Sohar on its largest ore carriers.
