One of the reasons we both know is Chinese steelmakers were just not buying for a couple months. They were growing 9-12% for 3 years and the median report now is 7.6%-still growth but less inventory needed for 7.6% growth than 9-12% especially in combination w China restricting the previous easy loans in an attempt to cool a housing bubble etc-and now China govt easing/loaning again.
When they essentially stop buying for a couple months to allow then bloated inventories to decline, preceded and partially caused by a concomitant unexpected increase in iron supply,that caused the unexpected price drop. So when ANY buying starts returning it has more effect than the volume of that buying under normal circumstances. Chinese steelmakers profits had temporarily fallen to razor thin,including Bao's. Remember the wikipedia article I keep posting on another board re Bao's 10 billion expansion to another part of China.
Well,the older plants are of course less efficient and thus have less profit and one of Bao's plants in Shanghai has been losing money-so yesterday I learned from articles that Bao shut down 1 furnace in said plant in July and another furnace recently in same plant. I think such shutdowns were part of their plans in closing an older plant and opening a new probably larger plant(s) but the Chinese slowdown and bloated inventory caused them to do so earlier than planned.
Those furnaces are not shut down on a whim-I dont have any familiarity w iron furnaces but I have some w aluminum pot furnaces which can take weeks to get back up to speed.
So that is probably why CWRN has not shipped to Bao since June 12 ship left.
Bingo and Bob/Shirley/Sharon/Matt and all the rest of them have a far greater understanding of the iron business than I and they probably began focusing on the fertilizer as a result during this recent interim-
only to probably find out that in the Mex govt 's recent crackdown on illegal cartel mines bizarrely applied across the board to all iron exporters that the govt started requiring an export permit for the fertilizer also-remember CWRN's fertilizer is tested at 55.42-55.92 % iron so CWRN's waste of the waste of their waste (the fertilizer ) has a lot higher iron content than China's average of 20% (which is heading towards 15% as a recent article you posted noted)- and is not much lower than the second international iron benchmark of 58%.
and so they've had to wait for the iron export permit re the fert to export it to the USA while Mex Presidential elections were held July 30 if I remember-and then on top of that there was a constitutional challenge to the Mex election results which was not decided until Aug 30 -talk about Murphys law.
