世界铁矿石资源——开发和利用的趋势

过去的几十年里采矿生产率飞速提高，其主要原因是资本密集度的提高和大型高质量矿藏的开采。作为世界采矿工业的一部分，铁矿石生产也遵循了类似的发展路线。钢铁生产的科技进步提高了对铁矿石质量的要求，并迫使矿石生产商降低铁矿石中杂质的含量，提高全铁品位。这样的发展对澳大利亚、巴西和印度的铁矿石生产商来说非常有利。中国的铁矿石生产商生意兴隆，因为他们占有地利（与快速扩张的中国钢铁工业距离更近）。按照已知的产能扩张计划，铁矿石供应的紧张形势可能在2008年结束。这对不同生产商的影响是不一样的，影响的大小取决于运费率和合同价格的精确组合。中国生产商与澳大利亚、巴西的大生产商是利益相背的。

World Iron Ore Resources: Trends in Development and Utilization

Over the past couple of decades, productivity in mining in general has increased rapidly, mainly as a result of increased capital intensity and the opening of large high quality deposits. Iron ore production has followed a similar development path as the rest of the world mining industry. Technological changes in steel production have raised quality requirements for iron ore and obliged iron ore miners to reduce impurities and increase iron content. This development has been especially favourable to producers in Australia, Brazil and India, while Chinese producers have flourished because of their closeness to the rapidly expanding Chinese steel industry. Based on what is known about capacity expansion plans, it is possible that the tight supply situation for iron ore will come to an end in 2008. The impact on the individual producers will differ depending on the exact combination of freight rates and contract prices. Chinese producers have opposite interests to the large producers in Australia and Brazil.