Iron ore prices have fallen to below $70/tonne, Chinese domestic steel demand has begun to decline for the first time in years and China’s steel exports have surged as a direct result of slowing demand. BHP Billiton has now warned that China’s steel consumption may slow in 2015. “We saw these changes coming a long way off,” chief executive Andrew Mackenzie is quoted as saying by Reuters.

BHPB recently seemed to be continuing the trend of miner optimism by predicting China’s peak steel output at 1-1.1 billion tonnes/year, up from just over 830 million tonnes in 2014. This compares to a forecast by the China Metallurgical Industry Planning and Research Institute (MPI) of a ‘peak range’ of 800-900m t/y and a Macquarie forecast of steel output peaking at 950m t/y.

BHPB now appears to be possibly even more bearish than MPI. Alan Chirgwin, BHPB’s general manager for marketing and iron ore is quoted by Reuters as saying Chinese steel demand could grow just 0.5-1.5% in 2015. MPI expects demand growth of 1.41% to 720mt, Kallanish observes.

Mackenzie noted that BHPB had stopped approving new investment in iron ore mining capacity in 2011.

Meanwhile, BHPB shipped its one billionth tonne of iron ore to China on Thursday night, noting that it took 30 years to ship the first 100mt and just 12 years to ship the remaining 900mt.

Interestingly, BHP shipped its billionth tonne of iron ore to Japan last July.