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Fastmarkets has observed rising volumes of high-grade iron ore fines from other origins trading in the spot market, with participants projecting further growth. As more high-grade sinter fines products from different origins enter the spot market, Fastmarkets aims to enhance the index’s ability to reflect pricing trends and trading activity in the seaborne high-grade fines market into China.
At the same time, growing focus on steel decarbonization and blast furnace efficiency has continued to support demand for higher-grade iron ore products globally, increasing market interest and participation in the high-grade segment.
Following a review of the typical datasets collected in recent months, Fastmarkets proposes widening the origin specification for MB-IRO-0009 iron ore 65% Fe Brazil-origin fines, cfr Qingdao, from Brazil-origin material to all origins. Under this proposal, the index will be renamed “MB-IRO-0009 iron ore 65% Fe fines, cfr Qingdao.”
Fastmarkets also proposes raising the maximum alumina specification to 3.0% from 1.9% to better reflect the quality range of high-grade fines commonly traded in the market. The base specifications remain unchanged, and data that differs from them will be normalized.
The index will continue to reflect the price of 63.5-66.0% Fe iron ore fines in the CFR China spot market. The broader origin and specification ranges will capture a wider range of prevailing high-grade fines liquidity in the seaborne market.
Cargoes that deviate from base specifications but remain within the specified iron and impurity ranges will be normalized using in-house regression models. These models apply monthly-updated brand coefficients as a composite proxy for quality differences – covering silica, alumina, phosphorus, moisture, sizing, and non-physical attributes such as commercial factors – rather than adjusting each driver individually.
Brand-based normalization offers a pragmatic and scalable approach across different products. By using brand coefficients, Fastmarkets reduces the need to model individual attributes while retaining strong explanatory power. This is consistent with the normalization process of the Fastmarkets iron ore suite, ensuring the indices capture a large volume of liquidity and continue to reflect a market-representative iron ore price.
Any high-grade sinter fines trades with an iron content that differs from its standard product specification will be normalized toward the base specifications of that brand using the Fastmarkets 65% Fe VIU (Value in Use).
Fastmarkets will continue to convert index-linked trades to fixed-price equivalents for this market. Fastmarkets will apply the consistent, transparent approach used across its iron ore indices to convert index-linked trades to fixed-price equivalents using associated derivatives.
For more details of the normalization process, please refer to Page 4 of the Fastmarkets iron ore methodology.
To provide feedback on this index, or if you would like to provide price information by becoming a data submitter to this index, please contact steelrawmaterials@fastmarkets.com and pricing@fastmarkets.com before Friday July 24. Please add the subject heading “re: 65% Fe iron ore index.”
The amendment will then take place, subject to market feedback, on Tuesday September 1.
Please indicate if comments are confidential. Fastmarkets will consider all comments received and will make comments not marked as confidential available upon request.
To see all Fastmarkets’ pricing methodology and specification documents, go to the Fastmarkets Methodology page.