Iron ore supply cartel?

Each year BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Brazil's CVRD sit down separately with the key steelmakers around the world and negotiate new iron ore prices. Remarkably, they come up with the same price increases, year after year. Last year, the price increase was 71.5 per cent. This year it is 19 per cent.

Australia's ABC Online spoke to the head of CVRD's iron ore division, Jose Carlos Martins, to ask whether there is a cartel now in place for the supply of iron ore. The answer it seems is no: there is not a cartel in place. Rather, annual prices get set through so-called 'benchmark prices'. Read the whole article at http://www.abc.net.au/insidebusiness/content/2006/s1660292.htm.

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