(Yicai Global) Dec. 11 -- Iron ore future in China’s Dalian Commodity Exchange jumped to its highest ever this morning as expectations of a global economic recovery and the peak steel plant restocking season drove prices up.

The most active May 2021 delivery contract traded at CNY1,026 (USD156.32) at 10.00 a.m., up 8.23 percent, and the first time the price of the most active iron ore contract at the exchange has topped the CNY1,000 threshold.

The price of iron ore futures have trended strongly upward in Dalian since early November, and the May 2021 delivery contract has risen some 38 percent since then.

China is the world’s largest iron ore consumer and, despite the Covid-19 pandemic, produced 870 million metric tons of raw steel during the first ten months, up 5.5 percent on the year, the latest government data show.

The recent surge in iron ore prices has rocked the profits of Chinese mills. Some companies’ margins have swerved into the red and several have begun to tweak their production lines in hopes of breaking even, Qiu Yuecheng, director of coal, steel and mineral coke research at Everbright Futures Research Institute, told Yicai Global in an interview early this month.

Editor: Ben Armour