About bulk / ferrous
Editorial · sourcedWhat are bulk / ferrous commodities?
"Bulk / ferrous" is the market category for the high-tonnage iron-and-steel inputs that move in the dry-bulk seaborne trade — chiefly iron ore, metallurgical (coking) coal, and the steel products themselves. Bloomberg Intelligence and the S&P Global Platts ferrous price set treat the group as a unit because the economics are dominated by a single value chain: iron ore + met coal → blast-furnace / EAF → crude steel → flat & long products. Combined seaborne tonnage (~3 Gt/year of iron ore + ~300 Mt of met coal + ~500 Mt of finished steel) is an order of magnitude larger than the entire non-ferrous metals trade. TSM Hub currently covers iron ore; steel grades (HRC, rebar) and metallurgical coal are tracked for the next release.
How bulk / ferrous commodities are priced
Iron ore is priced on the Platts IODEX 62% Fe CFR China daily benchmark and the Fastmarkets MB 62% Fe CFR China index, with cleared futures on SGX (Singapore Exchange) and DCE (Dalian Commodity Exchange) — both highly liquid. Metallurgical coal: Platts FOB Australia premium hard coking coal index + SGX cleared futures. Steel: LME Steel HRC (Northern Europe, North America) and SHFE rebar futures. All four benchmarks are administered under UK/EU BMR or equivalent regulation.
Where bulk / ferrous commodities come from
Per USGS MCS 2026 Iron Ore and World Steel Association statistics: iron ore — Australia ~35% (Pilbara), Brazil ~20% (Vale Carajás & Minas Gerais), China ~15% (low-grade domestic), India ~7%, Russia ~5%, South Africa, Canada, Ukraine. Metallurgical coal — Australia ~55% of seaborne (Queensland Bowen Basin), USA ~12%, Russia, Canada, Mozambique. Crude steel — China >50% of world output (~1 Gt/year), India ~7%, Japan, USA, Russia, South Korea, Germany.
Who produces bulk / ferrous commodities
Iron ore is the most concentrated major commodity by producer: the "Big Four" — Vale (Brazil), Rio Tinto, BHP and Fortescue (Pilbara, Australia) together produce ~75% of seaborne iron-ore supply. Metallurgical coal: BHP-Mitsubishi Alliance (BMA), Anglo American, Glencore, Teck Resources. Steel: China Baowu Steel (world's largest steelmaker, ~130 Mt/yr), ArcelorMittal, Ansteel, Nippon Steel, POSCO, Tata Steel.
What bulk / ferrous commodities are used for
The bulk-ferrous chain feeds steel, the workhorse structural material of the world economy:
- Iron ore — >98% goes into blast-furnace or DRI iron-making for steel.
- Metallurgical coal — coke for blast-furnace reduction of iron ore (~70% of demand); the rest is PCI (pulverised coal injection).
- Steel — construction (~50% of demand), transport (~16%), machinery, packaging, white goods. The world produces ~1.9 Gt of crude steel per year — more by mass than all non-ferrous metals combined times 30.
Key facts about bulk / ferrous supply
- Iron ore, metallurgical coal and steel are not on the USGS 2025 Critical Minerals list (large diversified supply); but metallurgical coal is on the list as of the 2022 review, reflecting US steel-industry concerns over import dependence.
- Silicon, manganese and chromium are USGS 2025 Critical Minerals — silicon was added in the 2025 update, while manganese and chromium have been on the list since 2018 (no US domestic mine production of either).
- Bauxite is the world's only primary ore of aluminium (~98% of supply); ~75% of mined bauxite is processed via the Bayer process to alumina (Al₂O₃) which is then smelted to aluminium. Country-by-country reserves and production are tracked in the bauxite & alumina chapter of USGS MCS.
- The iron-ore market is the deepest commodity market on Earth by combined physical + cleared-derivatives turnover, ahead of crude oil and gold by tonnage-times-frequency.
- EU CBAM (Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, Regulation 2023/956) covers iron, steel, aluminium, fertilisers, cement, hydrogen, electricity — definitive period begins 1 January 2026. Importers into the EU must purchase CBAM certificates reflecting embedded CO₂.
Why Nickel Pig Iron (NPI) is not shown here
Nickel Pig Iron (NPI) — a low-grade ferro-nickel product (1.5–15% Ni) made by smelting Indonesian/Philippine laterite ore with coke in submerged-arc or rotary-kiln-electric-furnace plants — is a major input to Chinese stainless steel (~60% of China's nickel units in 2024). It is not shown on TSM Hub as a separate page because there is no primary-source publication for country-by-country NPI production. USGS Nickel MCS publishes mined nickel as the element only; NPI is a downstream product tracked exclusively by commercial providers (Antaike, Mysteel, SMM, Macquarie) under paid subscription. Including a fabricated NPI table would violate our one true source for all principle. SHFE launched NPI futures in 2024 as a price benchmark; that gives a daily yuan/mt-Ni price but not a country production statistic. We track the upstream element Nickel from USGS and the LME contract; the downstream NPI flow is left to specialists.