Based on global iron-ore demand, electronic iron-ore trading platform globalOre Europe plans to introduce new iron-ore products in the near future, says globalOre Europe markets head Varun Dinodiya.

He discussed the development of the company’s electronic trading platform at Metal Bulletin Events’ second African Iron-Ore conference, in Johannesburg, last month.

Dinodiya explained that, while the company initially traded in seven grading types of iron-ore products, the company had consolidated its iron-ore products into five types, ranging from 58% to 65% iron, based on feedback from the market.

Marketplace

globalOre Europe operates an electronic platform for trading physical iron-ore, which was established to create a liquid and transparent marketplace to support wholesale market participants such as steel mills, iron-ore producers and traders.

The cross-industry platform was founded in May 2012 by several international mining companies, including Chinese steel producer Baosteel, diversified mining major BHP Billiton, Chinese steel producer Hunan Vali and Chinese metals and minerals trading company China Minmetals.

Dinodiya said the company’s trading platform was a bilateral one in which market participants could control who they were trading with and manage their credit risks amongst one another.

Participants

globalOre is a standardised trading platform, enabling all trades to be made in accordance with the standard international iron-ore trading agreement to deliver its services with trans- parency,” he said.

Dinodiya added that the iron-ore trading participants decided the price at which they wanted to trade and that there was no third party assessment in the process.

He stated that China was currently the largest spot market for iron-ore trades and that 61% of the company’s trade emanated from that country.