Official data showed that China's iron ore production hit its highest in 11 months in September 2012, as a rebound in prices of the steelmaking raw material encouraged small privately owned miners to resume output.

Data from China's National Bureau of Statistics showed that September's output of 129.06 million tonnes of ore was an 11% MoM rise from August 2012 and a 20% YoY increase from a year ago. It was the highest since October 2011 when iron ore output hit an all time high of 132.4 million tonnes.

January to September 2012 period output of iron ore jumped 17% YoY to 968 million tonnes from a year earlier

But the increased output is unlikely to cut China's reliance on imports, given the low grades of domestic iron ore. Raw iron ore in China has about 15% iron content on average compared to around 60% for material found in Australia and Brazil. China, the world's top iron ore buyer, imports about 60% of the globally traded steelmaking raw material.

Source - Reuters

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