China devours 2/3 of the world's seaborn iron ore. So goes its appetite, so goes the price of iron ore.
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The country has overbuilt. A well-regarded contact in Beijing told us that another study revealed 28% of the homes in Beijing had not used electricity for six months. In New York, he reckons that number might be more like 4%. Meanwhile, researchers at China's Southwestern University of Finance and Economics found that 49 million (22%) of Chinese apartments sold in 2013 were vacant.
In theory, those homes will fill up as Chinese move from the country to the city. In reality, there are enough empty apartments in China to house 6 years' worth of urban migration. That's more than an entire year's worth of global iron ore demand going up in smoke.
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All that's troubling enough as is, but iron ore supply is also growing. UBS forecasts that iron ore's oversupply will 6X from 35 million this year to more than 200 million by 2018. The major miners are fixated on gaining market share, and they will, but at the expense of crushing the iron ore price for years to come.
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