Australia's BC Iron Ltd. (BCI.AU) said its Nullagine joint venture with Fortescue Metals Group Ltd. (FMG.AU) is on track to ship 3.5 million metric tons of ore this financial year.
The 50-50 venture continues to experience strong demand and is exporting to schedule, the company said in a statement.
Some trading houses in China have begun to defer shipments of the steelmaking commodity, holding out for lower prices amid high port inventories and a slowdown in the country's industrial production, traders have said. The deferred volumes haven't to date been large, they said.
BC Iron said the Nullagine venture this month hit its targeted sustained production rate of 5 million tons annually, having ramped up capacity to 3 million tons at the end of 2011. It had exported 1 million tons of iron ore by the end of December.
Source: Dow Jones