Australia’s Port Hedland iron ore shipments grew again in September to the second highest monthly volume shipped so far in 2017, Kallanish notes. The Pilbara, Western Australian port still saw monthly cargoes increase by just over 1 million tonnes from August as Chinese and South Korean exports both grew again.

Cargoes to China from Port Hedland in September were the second highest in 2017 at 36,729,590 tonnes. The average daily shipment volume to China at 1,184,825t was the second highest in 2017 so far.

Total iron ore shipments from the port were 43,371,227t in September. The average total global volume shipped/day was 1,445,708t, the highest of the year and in fact another all-time record for average daily shipments in a given month.

Iron ore shipments to South Korea grew again to 3,745,698t, another high for 2017. Cargoes to Japan also upticked to 1,927,083t from 1,790,040t in August.

Due to relatively poor volumes in July, total iron ore shipments for the third quarter at just over 124mt were lower than those in Q2 (129.5mt). They were well clear however of Q1 shipments which, at just over 115mt, was the lowest quarterly volume of the year so far.

The port handles iron ore shipments for BHP Billiton, Fortescue Metals and Roy Hill.