<article><p class="lead">China's spot seaborne iron ore trade is continuing to shift to floating deals as uncertainty about price direction discourages fixed-price transactions.</p><p>Last year, 60.6pc of the 33.62mn t transactions done on China's leading online trading platform Corex were index-linked, while the remainder were fixed-price deals. This was mostly stable from 2016, but continues the major change from 2015 and earlier. Fixed-price deals made up over 70pc of total transactions on Corex in 2015.</p><p>Argus in December revised its assessment methodology for ICX, the price for 62pc fines to China, to include floating deals along with fixed-price deals and matched offers and bids. The changes add further depth to the data pool that generates the daily price. </p><p>Floating deals become more frequent when prices are falling, Corex said. It pointed to June 2017, which had the highest number of floating deals and the lowest monthly average price.</p><p>Most deals on Corex are dollar-denominated, but there are some yuan-denominated transactions for portside ores. Brazilian mining firm Vale reported sales of yuan-denominated portside cargoes on Corex in 2017, but did not give volumes. It plans to increase such sales this year.</p><p>Vale is aiming to blend around 100mn t of its BRBF fines in China and Malaysia this year and sell a significant amount of these ores on the yuan-denominated portside market. The company blended around 75mn t last year. BRBF is a blend of 65pc basis IOCJ fines and high-silica southern system fines.</p></article>
