BHP Group chairman Ross McEwan confirmed the mining giant was in commercial negotiations with China’s state-owned iron ore buyer, during its annual meeting in Melbourne on Thursday.
“We have decades of relationships in China and we have a very good working relationship,” McEwan said in response to a shareholder question at the meeting. “But this is a commercial negotiation that is underway, like every year.”
Bloomberg News reported in late September that China Mineral Resources Group Co. had asked major domestic buyers, including steel mills and state-owned trading houses, to suspend purchases of any new BHP dollar-denominated ocean cargo. McEwan did not directly address the outage Thursday.
