An End In Sight For Iron Ore Negotiations?

Iron ore price negotiations, usually wrapped up by a June 30 deadline, have instead gone on for months this year, with the big three - Rio Tinto (NYSE: ), Vale (NYSE: ) and BHP (NYSE: ) - still at the bargaining table with China.

China has been pushing for cuts as high as 45% off last year's record prices. Needless to say, the miners have been resistant.

But now there's light at the end of the tunnel: BHP just agreed to a 33% cut in benchmark price for Chinese iron ore, although the price doesn't apply for all its ore. BHP CEO Marius Kloppers, long a proponent of changing the way iron ore is priced, has made no secret of his desire to move away from the traditional benchmark pricing and more toward spot market sales. This new agreement gets them one step closer to that.

According to a company press release, 23% of BHP's iron ore will be sold at the lower annual contract price just agreed upon. A full 30% of BHP's iron ore will be sold "on a mix of quarterly negotiated pricing, market clearing price (spot market) and index-based pricing." And the remaining 47% of BHP's ore? Those negotiations are "ongoing."

Now we just have to see what plays out between Vale, Rio Tinto and China - negotiations that Rio Tinto is currently not a part of, as the country continues to investigate the company's employees on charges of espionage.

But iron ore still needs to flow into China, and without an official benchmark price, some, but not all, steel mills have started to turn to the spot market. Bloomberg reports that about half of Vale's shipments are selling at the same benchmark prices the company agreed to with Japan and Korea, a 28% decrease from last year's benchmark.

Whether or not an official agreement is reached at this level may depend on how soon it could be made, as steel demand is ever rising.