Part A: Review (2018/10/29-2018/11/2)

From October 29, 2018 to November 2, 2018:the closing price of iron ore futures I1901 contract on Friday was 508.5 yuan, 30 yuan lower than the closing price of the last trading day of last week. The highest price for this week is 546.5 yuan/ton, and the lowest point is 501.5 yuan/ton.

This week (2018/10/29-2018/11/2), the total volume of I1901 contract was 5,865,422 lots, an increase of 1,142,392 lots from last week. After the close of trading this Friday, open interest was 722,020 lots, a decrease of 124,702 lots from the last trading day of last week.

Part B: Market Dynamics

1.Inventory

(1) Port stock of imported iron ore

Under the background of the country's policy of increasing environmental protection and production limits in various regions, the blast furnace start-up of steel mills has been suppressed. In order to increase the production capacity per unit, steel mills' demand for high-quality mines has gradually increased.

According to the inventory data of 45 ports of My steel, as of November 2, the inventory of imported mines at 45 ports was 143.57 million tons, a decrease of 1.61 million tons from last week.

Among them, the Australian mine inventory was 81.146 million tons, down 2,498,800 tons from last week; the Brazilian mine inventory was 32.0016 million tons, down 483,700 tons from last week. It can be seen that Brazil's high-quality mine inventory is at a low level, and Australia's low-grade and medium-grade mines are at a relatively high level. Therefore, the contradiction between low inventory and high demand of high- quality mines has pushed the price of 65%-grade Brazilian Carajas sinter feed to continue to rise, and the price of 61.5%-grade of Australian PB fines has oscillated at a low level, with a small increase.

The stock of lump ore was 15.98 million tons, a decrease of 443,200 tons from last week; the inventory of pellets was 2,392,700 tons, an increase of 8,200 tons from last week; the inventory of iron concentrate was 7,735,900 tons, a decrease of 202,000 tons from last week.

(2) Available days of steel mill inventory

As of November 2, the average available days of imported iron ore stocks in domestic large and medium-sized steel mills was 28 days, a decrease of 4 days from October 19.

2. Capacity utilization rate

This week, Mysteel surveyed 247 steel mills with a blast furnace operating rate of 79.44%, down 0.7% from the previous week and down 2.67% year-on-year; blast furnace ironmaking capacity utilization rate was 81.71%, up 0.05% from the previous week and down 0.23% from the previous year; Steel mill profit rate is 91.50%,down 0.4% from the previous week; the daily average molten iron output was 2,285,000 tons, an increase of 1,400 tons from the previous week and a decrease of 5,000 tons year-on-year.

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