【Ferro-alloys.com】:China's domestic iron-ore concentrate output in 2024 will rise between 5-million and 10-million metric tons from the year before, its State-backed steel association said on Friday.

"The key domestic iron-ore projects have made noticeable progress thanks to efforts from various parties," the China Iron and Steel Association (CISA) said in a post on its WeChat account.

Global iron-ore supply will grow by more than 50-million tons in 2024, it said.

China, the world's largest iron ore consumer which imports more than two-thirds of its needs, aims to produce 370-million tons of iron-ore concentrate domestically by 2025 to reduce its heavy dependence on imports of the key steelmaking ingredient.

But many participants raised doubts on whether it could achieve the target on time.

China produced 72.07-million tons of iron ore concentrate in the first three months of 2024, a 4% rise from last year, data from the Metallurgical Mines' Association of China (MMAC) showed.

But the MMAC did not give the 2023 annual total in its monthly summary for December 2023, just stating the total output of the domestically produced run of mine (ROM), which is used to make concentrate, jumped by 7.1% to 990.56-million tons last year.

Total iron ore concentrate rose by 4.1% to 298.34-million tons in 2023, according to a post by a news outlet under the CISA in late April, which added that the ROM production capacity had jumped by 40-million tons to 1.39-billion tons per year.

The giant Simandou iron-ore project in Guinea, set to be the world's largest and highest grade new iron-ore mine, will commence production by the end of 2025, and will add annual output of around 120-million tons of high-quality iron ore after it reaches full capacity.

"Whether in the short-term or in the medium to long term, the global iron ore supply will be relatively sufficient and there is no basis for iron ore prices to hover high in the future," the CISA added.

• [Editor:Alakay]