Iron Ore
Platts IODEX / SGX
The biggest dry bulk trade on earth, priced one shipload at a time since the 2010 benchmark collapse.
Top Producers
share of 2024 seaborne supply
Top Consumers
share of 2024 seaborne iron ore imports
Main Uses
share of 2024 demand by end use of the steel iron ore becomes (worldsteel)
Top Exporters
share of 2024 seaborne iron ore exports (worldsteel / UNCTAD); Australia and Brazil together supply roughly four-fifths of the trade
Top Importers
share of 2024 seaborne iron ore imports (worldsteel / UNCTAD)
Seaborne trade
roughly 1.6 billion tonnes per year
as of 2024
China share of seaborne imports
roughly 75 percent
as of 2024
Record price (62 percent Fe CFR China)
$233 per dry tonne
May 2021
Australian exports
roughly 930 million tonnes per year
as of 2024
Simandou capacity at full ramp
roughly 120 million tonnes per year
first ore November 2025
Pilbara cash costs
roughly $20 per tonne
as of 2025
Iron ore is the giant of the bulks: roughly 1.6 billion tonnes cross the oceans every year, feeding the blast furnaces that make most of the world's steel, and China alone buys roughly three-quarters of it. The trade is a duopoly of geology. Australia's Pilbara ships roughly 900 million tonnes a year through Port Hedland and Dampier from the mines of Rio Tinto, BHP, and Fortescue at cash costs around $20 a tonne; Brazil adds roughly 400 million tonnes from Vale, whose higher-grade ore commands premiums. The marginal buyer is always a Chinese steel mill, which is why iron ore is the purest single-price expression of Chinese construction: it rode the property boom to a record $233 a tonne in May 2021, then followed Evergrande's default down, and spent 2024 and 2025 mostly between roughly $90 and $110 as Chinese steel output slipped from its 2020 peak above a billion tonnes.
The market's pricing history is a finance case study. For forty years ore sold through annual benchmark negotiations: the first miner-mill settlement of the season set the world price. China's explosive growth broke the system, spot prices ran away from stale contracts, and in 2010 Vale, Rio Tinto, and BHP abandoned annual pricing for index-linked sales, anchored to the Platts IODEX assessment of 62 percent Fe fines delivered CFR China. SGX had launched cleared swaps in April 2009, Dalian followed with yuan futures in 2013, and paper volumes now turn over multiples of the seaborne trade. Beijing pushed back on miner pricing power by creating China Mineral Resources Group in 2022 to centralize state-mill purchasing, and flexed it in September 2025 by ordering mills to pause purchases of BHP cargoes during contract negotiations.
The next decade's supply story is Guinea. The Simandou range, the largest untapped high-grade deposit on earth, shipped its first ore in November 2025 after two decades of legal wars and a $20 billion-plus build by Rio Tinto, Chinese partners, and the Winning Consortium, ramping toward roughly 120 million tonnes a year. Its high-grade ore arrives just as steelmakers pivot toward lower-carbon production routes, direct reduction and electric arc furnaces, that prize exactly that quality, and as the China-centric demand era gives way to slower growth and Indian expansion.
How It Trades
| Venue | Physical trade priced against Platts IODEX; derivatives on SGX (Singapore) and DCE (Dalian) |
| Benchmark contract | SGX 62 percent Fe iron ore futures and swaps, settled against the IODEX-linked index |
| Contract size | 100 tonnes per lot (SGX) |
| Price terms | USD per dry metric tonne, CFR China, 62 percent Fe fines basis; grade spreads (58, 65 percent) trade around it |
| Settlement | Cash settlement against the monthly average of the 62 percent Fe CFR China index; physical cargoes price off the same assessments shipload by shipload |
| Typical curve | Usually backwardated: the forward curve persistently prices in supply growth and Chinese demand decline |
| Liquidity | SGX is the international hedging venue with paper volumes at multiples of seaborne trade; DCE volumes are larger still but yuan-denominated and retail-heavy |
Where It Trades
approximate share of global daily exchange volume, 2025; DCE leads by raw lots while SGX leads the international dollar-cleared market
Supply and Demand
Top producers
- Australia: roughly 930 million tonnes exported (Rio Tinto, BHP, Fortescue, Hancock from the Pilbara)
- Brazil: roughly 400 million tonnes (Vale's Carajas system, the highest-grade large-scale ore)
- Guinea: Simandou shipped first ore in November 2025, ramping toward roughly 120 million tonnes a year
- South Africa, Canada, India, Ukraine: smaller seaborne suppliers
- China: large domestic mine output but low grade and high cost, the swing supply of last resort
The seaborne market is roughly 1.6 billion tonnes a year. Pilbara cash costs near $20 a tonne mean the majors profit at almost any price in modern history; price wars hurt everyone else first.
Top consumers
- China: roughly 75 percent of seaborne imports, driven by a steel industry producing roughly a billion tonnes a year
- Japan, South Korea, Taiwan: the traditional blast furnace buyers
- European Union
- India: growing fast but largely self-supplied
Major uses
- Blast furnace steelmaking: the overwhelming majority
- Direct reduced iron (DRI), the growing low-carbon route that demands high-grade ore
- Construction and infrastructure dominate end-use; machinery, autos, and shipbuilding take the rest
What Moves the Price
- Chinese steel production and property construction, the dominant variable
- Chinese policy: stimulus, steel output caps, and CMRG purchasing behavior
- Pilbara and Brazilian shipment rates, weather (cyclones), and port disruptions
- Simandou's ramp-up toward roughly 120 million tonnes a year from late 2025
- Steel mill margins, which decide whether mills restock or destock ore
- Grade spreads as mills chase productivity or cut costs
- Dry bulk freight rates between Australia, Brazil, and China
Moments That Made the Market
1960s
Japan signs the long-term Pilbara contracts that create the annual benchmark system and modern Australian mining.
2008
The China boom forces annual benchmark settlements up nearly double, the system's last great negotiation.
2009
SGX launches cleared iron ore swaps, the seed of the modern derivatives market.
2010
Vale, Rio Tinto, and BHP abandon annual benchmark pricing for index-linked sales: forty years of negotiated pricing ends.
2015
The price bottoms near $38 a tonne in December as supply growth swamps slowing Chinese demand.
2019
Vale's Brumadinho tailings dam collapse kills 270 people and cuts Brazilian supply; prices surge and dam safety reshapes the industry.
2021
Record $233 a tonne in May, then a collapse below $90 as Evergrande defaults and the property era ends.
2022
Beijing creates China Mineral Resources Group to centralize iron ore buying for state mills.
2025
Simandou ships first ore in November; CMRG halts purchases of BHP cargoes in a September pricing standoff.
What Changed Since the 2010 Handbook Era
- Pricing went from one annual negotiation to a liquid spot-plus-derivatives complex: indices, SGX swaps, and Dalian futures replaced the benchmark dinner in 2010.
- China's property bust ended two decades of structural demand growth; the question became how fast Chinese steel declines, not how fast it grows.
- Beijing organized the buy side: CMRG turned a fragmented mill base into a single negotiating counterparty.
- Simandou broke the Australia-Brazil duopoly with the first new major supply province in a generation.
- Decarbonization made grade a strategy: DRI and electric arc steelmaking pay up for high-grade ore, splitting the market the 62 percent index once unified.