For decades, iron ore was plentiful, prices were stable and mining the commodity was a monotonous and unglamorous business.
That began to change in the early 2000s when China's huge steel needs transformed iron ore into the “unobtainium” of the global commodity market. Prices began to soar and, as they did so, the annual pricing system that had served as a benchmark for four decades began to be questioned.
That process reached its conclusion yesterday when miners and steelmakers ditched the system of annual contracts and long negotiations that had been in place since the 1960s for new short-term deals based on the spot market.
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