Iron ore & steel
The parameter that sinks ships is moisture, not iron.
Iron ore fines, lump, pellets and concentrate, and semi-finished and finished steel. Priced on value-in-use rather than on Fe content alone — and loaded only with the Group A documentation complete, because on this cargo that paperwork is a safety system.
The desk
Iron ore is the only cargo on our book where the specification is a survival question.
Iron ore fines can liquefy. Above a certain moisture content the interstitial water in a fine, poorly-graded cargo takes the load off the particle contacts under the vibration of a ship at sea, the cargo loses its shear strength, and a solid mass becomes something closer to a slurry that can shift as one body. A bulk carrier that loses stability that way does not usually give its crew much time.
That is why iron ore fines were reclassified into Group A of the IMSBC Code — cargoes that may liquefy — and why the transportable moisture limit and the actual moisture content have to be certified before loading rather than assessed afterwards. It is also why we treat the shipper's moisture declaration as a condition of the trade rather than a document to be chased. A cargo without it is not a cheap cargo. It is a cargo that should not be loaded.
Everything else on this page — grade, silica, alumina, phosphorus, pricing indices, mill certificates — is ordinary commercial work. The moisture is not ordinary, and it goes first for that reason.
Carriage
Which schedule your cargo travels under, and what the shipper has to produce.
Two separate schedules cover iron ore, and the difference between them is particle size — not iron content. Getting the classification wrong is the origin of most iron ore casualty cases.
| Schedule | Group | When it applies | What it means |
|---|---|---|---|
| Iron ore fines | A — may liquefy | 10 % or more of particles below 1 mm and 50 % or more below 10 mm. | TML and moisture content must be certified. Moisture above the TML means the cargo is not loaded, and the master is entitled to refuse it. |
| Iron ore | C — neither liquefies nor is a chemical hazard | Cargo outside the fines particle-size criteria — lump, and coarser material. | No liquefaction regime. Density and loading distribution are the concerns instead. |
| Iron ore fines with high goethite | C, by exception | Fines meeting the Group A size criteria but containing 35 % or more goethite by mass, determined by an internationally or nationally accepted procedure. | May be carried under the Iron Ore schedule. Goethite holds water in its structure rather than between particles, which is why the exception exists. The goethite content must be declared before loading. |
| Direct reduced iron | B — chemical hazard | Briquettes and HBI, lumps and pellets, and by-product fines — each with its own type schedule, including a type for by-product fines at 2 % moisture and above. | A different problem entirely: DRI reacts with water and air, generating hydrogen and heat. Inert atmosphere, monitoring and moisture control, not liquefaction. |
The documents
Two certificates, two clocks.
For a Group A cargo the shipper provides a cargo declaration accompanied by signed test certificates for both the transportable moisture limit and the moisture content, before loading, together with a statement that the figure is the average moisture content of the cargo at the time the declaration is presented.
The two certificates have different lives, and this is where cargoes get stopped:
- TML
- The test must be conducted within six months of the date of loading. It is a property of the material, so it changes slowly.
- Moisture content
- Sampling and testing as near as practicable to the commencement of loading, and in no case more than seven days before it. It is a property of this stockpile today.
- And if it rains
- Where significant rain or snow falls between testing and the completion of loading, the shipper must check that the moisture content is still below the TML and provide that evidence to the master. This is the clause that decides monsoon-season loadings, and it is the one most often treated as a formality.
We ask for both certificates and their dates at the offer stage. A seller who cannot produce a TML certificate inside six months, or a moisture figure inside seven days, does not have a shippable cargo yet — whatever the price says.
Ore products
Four forms, and a blast furnace has views about all of them.
Fines
The bulk of the seaborne trade, and the sinter feed. Sized below roughly 6.3 mm, which is what puts it in Group A. Priced against the medium-grade index with value-in-use adjustments for silica, alumina and phosphorus.
Lump
Coarser, charged directly to the furnace without sintering, and therefore carrying a lump premium that reflects avoided sinter cost and energy. Sized typically 6.3–31.5 mm, with a decrepitation index that matters as much as the grade.
Pellets
Agglomerated concentrate, higher Fe and lower gangue, sold as blast furnace or direct reduction grade. DR-grade pellets carry tight silica and alumina limits because a shaft furnace has no slag chemistry to hide behind, and they price at a separate premium.
Concentrate
Beneficiated fine material, high Fe and very fine sizing. The finest sizing in the group, so the liquefaction question is at its sharpest and moisture handling is the whole logistics problem.
DRI and HBI
Metallised feed for electric steelmaking. A Group B chemical-hazard cargo, not a liquefaction cargo — carriage requires inert conditions and temperature monitoring, and the type schedule must match the material.
What decides the discount
Silica and alumina drive slag volume and coke rate. Phosphorus goes into the steel and has to be removed downstream. Loss on ignition consumes furnace energy. And moisture is weight you pay freight on and then pay again in the furnace.
Pricing
The benchmark itself moved in January 2026, and a lot of contracts have not caught up.
Iron ore prices off published indices assessed on a CFR China basis, with adjustments to bring a specific cargo back to the index specification. That normalisation is where the money is, and the index it normalises to is not the one most people still quote.
- The medium-grade index changed base
- Effective 2 January 2026, Platts reduced the IODEX base iron content from 62 % Fe to 61 % Fe, citing degradation in the quality of the Australian fines informing the assessment. The assessment is now published as IODEX CFR China rather than IODEX 62 % Fe CFR China, with medium-grade fines still normalised within a 60–63.5 % Fe range but centred on the lower base.
- The full index specification
- 61 % Fe with 4.5 % silica, 2.5 % alumina, 0.1 % phosphorus, 0.02 % sulphur and 8 % moisture, CFR China. Every one of those is a normalisation point — a cargo at 3.0 % alumina is not simply "off spec", it is a calculable deduction.
- Why it matters in a contract
- A formula written as "IODEX 62 % Fe" now references an assessment that no longer exists under that name. Contracts rolling over from 2025 need the reference restated, and the value-in-use adjustment table restated with it, or the parties are pricing off different things and will discover it at the first invoice.
- The other indices
- Separate assessments exist for high-grade 65 % Fe and low-grade 58 % Fe material, plus lump and pellet premiums. The spread between grades widens and narrows with steel margins and coke prices, which is why a producer of high-grade material and a buyer of medium-grade material are not having the same conversation.
- What to fix
- The index, the publication, the pricing period, the value-in-use adjustment table with its unit rates, and whether moisture is deducted on a wet or dry basis. Dry metric tonne versus wet metric tonne is not a technicality; on an 8 % moisture cargo it is 8 % of the invoice.
Steel
Semi-finished and finished, and the certificate type is a term.
On steel the interesting document is not the analysis but who validated it. EN 10204 defines that, and the difference between its types is the difference between a supplier's word and an independent one.
| Document type | What it certifies | Who validates it |
|---|---|---|
| EN 10204 type 2.2 — test report | Non-specific inspection. Results from the manufacturer's own testing, not necessarily on the product supplied. | The manufacturer. Adequate for commodity structural work, and not adequate where the actual heat matters. |
| EN 10204 type 3.1 — inspection certificate | Specific inspection. Test results on the product actually supplied, traceable to the heat. | The manufacturer's authorised inspection representative, independent of the manufacturing department. This is the normal requirement for pressure, structural and safety-critical applications. |
| EN 10204 type 3.2 — inspection certificate | Specific inspection, as 3.1. | Both the manufacturer's inspection representative and the purchaser's representative or an inspector designated by official regulations. Two independent signatures on the same tests. |
Semi-finished
Billet, bloom and slab, to a named chemistry and cast size, with the intended downstream route stated — a rerolling billet and a forging billet are not the same purchase.
Flat products
Hot-rolled and cold-rolled coil, galvanised and coated coil, plate and sheet. Grade, thickness tolerance class, edge condition, coating mass and surface class, plus the flatness and coil weight the line can take.
Long products
Reinforcing bar, wire rod, sections and merchant bar, plus welded and seamless tubular and line pipe. Rebar and line pipe in particular are bought to a national standard as well as a European one, and certification to the destination's regime is not optional.
Structural grades
To EN 10025 — S235, S275, S355 — with the impact-toughness suffix, the delivery condition and the edition all written out. "S355" alone leaves out the part that matters in cold service.
Traceability
Heat number stamped or tagged and reconciled to the mill certificate, per bundle or per plate. A certificate that cannot be tied to the physical steel in front of you is not traceability.
Trade measures
Steel is among the most heavily protected goods in world trade — safeguards, quotas and anti-dumping duties by origin and product code. Origin and classification are commercial terms here, and we establish them before offering.
Border carbon
Iron and steel are inside CBAM. Iron ore is not.
The distinction is worth stating plainly because it is the one that surprises people: the EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism covers iron and steel as a sector, and it does not cover the ore going into it. The obligation attaches at the steel, not at the mine.
- Since 1 January 2026
- CBAM's definitive period. Reporting became a financial obligation: authorised CBAM declarant status must be held before importing, embedded emissions are declared annually, and certificates are surrendered against them.
- The de minimis
- Under 50 tonnes of covered goods per importer per calendar year, aggregated across all covered commodities. A fabricator importing both steel and aluminium counts them together.
- The timetable
- Certificates purchasable from February 2027; first annual declaration for 2026 imports due 30 September 2027; from 2027, certificates covering at least 50 % of embedded emissions held on a quarterly basis.
- What we do and do not do
- We supply the mill's verified embedded emissions data where the mill produces it, and the classification per consignment. We are not your declarant, and we will not put an emissions figure in a contract that the producer has not substantiated.
Scope
Where our obligation ends.
- What we supply
- Iron ore fines, lump, pellets and concentrate in cargo lots, and semi-finished and finished steel from named mills, FOB or CFR, with independent inspection at load and discharge.
- What we do not do
- We do not mine, we do not operate stockyards or terminals, and we do not roll steel. We hold no equity in production and we do not own vessels.
- Group A cargoes
- We will not load a fines cargo without a valid TML certificate and a moisture certificate inside the code's intervals, and we will not treat a master's refusal to load as a commercial dispute. This is not a negotiating position we soften for a good price.
- Steel certification
- We supply the certificate type the contract specifies. We will not represent a type 2.2 test report as a 3.1 inspection certificate, and where a buyer needs 3.2 we will say at the offer stage whether the mill will accommodate it.
- Trade measures
- Origin and tariff classification are established before offering. We do not restructure origin to change a duty outcome, and we decline enquiries whose object is that.
How to specify
Seven lines, and on ore the third one is the one people forget.
Grade is easy to state and rarely the binding constraint. Moisture, sizing and the adjustment table are what turn an indication into a price.
Product and form
Fines, lump, pellets, concentrate, DRI/HBI — or the steel product, grade and dimension.
Chemistry
Fe, silica, alumina, phosphorus, sulphur and loss on ignition, with tolerances and rejection limits distinguished from penalty limits.
Moisture and sizing
Moisture as delivered, the TML, and the size distribution. On ore this decides the carriage regime before it decides the price.
Quantity, vessel and basis
Tonnes, wet or dry, the vessel size your berth takes, load and discharge rates, and FOB or CFR.
Index and adjustments
Which index, which publication, the pricing period, and the value-in-use adjustment table with unit rates.
Certification
For steel, the EN 10204 type and any third-party inspection you require. For ore, the inspection agency and the governing analysis.
Regulatory position
For steel into the EU, your CBAM declarant status and the emissions data you need, plus any quota or duty position that affects origin.
Inspection
Sampling a 170,000-tonne stockpile is the hard part.
Independent inspection by an agency appointed for the cargo — SGS, Bureau Veritas or Intertek — instructed jointly, with sampling under supervision. On bulk ore the analysis is only as good as the sampling plan, and a headline number from a badly drawn sample is worse than no number because it looks authoritative.
- Sampling
- Mechanical or stopped-belt sampling to the applicable ISO procedure, with increment number and mass, division and preparation all recorded. Retained samples held by the inspector for the claim period, sealed and jointly identified.
- Moisture
- Determined by oven drying, on samples taken as near to loading as practicable and never more than seven days before it. Re-checked after significant rain, with the evidence given to the master. This is a safety determination that happens to also be a weight determination.
- Chemistry
- Fe, silica, alumina, phosphorus, sulphur, loss on ignition and the trace elements the buyer names, reported on a dry basis with the moisture stated separately so the two are never conflated.
- Sizing
- Full size distribution by sieve analysis, plus tumble and decrepitation indices on lump and pellets where the buyer's furnace route requires them.
- Quantity
- Draught survey at load and discharge, with the governing survey named in the contract, and the wet-to-dry conversion shown. Two draught surveys with a shore-scale figure between them is where most tonnage disputes are settled.
- Documentation per cargo
- Certificate of analysis, moisture certificate, TML certificate with its test date, size analysis, draught survey reports, certificate of origin, the IMSBC cargo declaration, bill of lading and the inspection report. For steel: the mill certificate to the specified EN 10204 type, with heat numbers reconciled to the packing list.
Straight answer
What we will tell you before you ask.
- That the moisture certificates are not paperwork
- Group A means the cargo can liquefy. A TML certificate older than six months, or a moisture figure older than seven days, means the cargo is not ready to load — and we will not price around that.
- That "IODEX 62% Fe" is a stale reference
- The base moved to 61 % Fe on 2 January 2026. Contracts rolling over from last year need the reference and the adjustment table restated, or both sides are pricing off different assessments.
- That wet and dry tonnes are 8% apart
- At index moisture. If a contract does not say which basis the price and the quantity are on, it does not have a price. This is the single most common ambiguity we are asked to fix in other people's drafts.
- That the EN 10204 type is a real term
- A 2.2 test report and a 3.1 inspection certificate are different documents with different validation. If you need traceability to the heat, ask for 3.1 in the enquiry, not in the claim.
- That CBAM covers the steel, not the ore
- And that the declarant obligation is the importer's. We supply verified mill data and the classification; we do not carry an obligation the law puts on you.
Enquiries
Every enquiry is answered by the desk that handles it.
Send the product, quantity, delivery basis, destination and timing. We revert with availability, an indication and the documentation that accompanies it. Specifications are released once we know who we are speaking with.