China's dependence on imported supplies of iron ore, a raw material for making steel, is poised to rise to almost 80 percent of consumption by 2015, according to Wood Mackenzie Ltd.
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Imports account for about 70 percent of Chinese supply now, Paul Gray, the researcher's principal iron-ore market analyst, said yesterday at the 7th EU Iron Ore Conference in Vienna. He estimated the country's "medium-term" import need for the commodity at 50 million metric tons a year.
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China is the world's biggest steel producer and importer of the ore. It will consume more than 1.2 billion tons a year by 2015, a Wood Mackenzie presentation at the conference showed. China has invested in iron-ore projects from Australia to Brazil to tighten its grip on global supplies amid expanding usage and declining grades at domestic mines.
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"The early ventures overseas by Chinese entities have been the most successful, the more recent ones have been rather more dubious and some have been outright failures," Gray said.Â
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"If everything China invested in were to proceed, China could account for a third of its iron-ore requirements from captive overseas investment. We think that's highly improbable," he added.
