China’s Baowu seeks deeper ties with Rio Tinto on iron ore trade

China Baowu Steel Group Corp., the world’s biggest steelmaker, will seek closer ties with iron ore miner Rio Tinto as China’s demand for the raw material rebounds. 

Baowu is looking to benefit from efforts to repair trade relations between China and Australia, Chairman Chen Derong said in a Friday meeting with Rio officials, according to a press release. Beijing resumed some shipments from Australia earlier this month, in efforts to end more than two years of diplomatic spats. 

The Chinese company is also keen to engage more in upstream production to help weather global market turmoil, said Chen. “We can’t rely on the old way to guarantee such an enormous amount of supply to China, we need to upgrade.” 

Baowu set up a joint venture with Rio Tinto last year to develop the $2 billion Western Range project in Western Australia. The Chinese firm agreed to buy up to 126.5 million tons of iron ore over 13 years at market prices via the joint venture. 

Baowu leads China’s new giant iron ore trading consortium, the China Mineral Resources Group, which will make purchases on behalf of about 20 of the largest Chinese steelmakers. 

Baowu absorbed Sinosteel last year and a few other smaller steelmakers in an industry-wide integration to give China more bargaining power in the international market and to help meet targets to lower carbon emissions.