Iron ore futures head for the highest close
in four months on supply concerns, as the number of coronavirus
infections in major producer Brazil continues to soar.
Brazil added more cases after a record number of infections
Friday, overtaking Spain as the nation with the world’s fourth-
highest number of confirmed Covid-19 patients. Brazil’s new
cases come as Vice President Hamilton Mourao and his wife are in
self-isolation after a civil servant he came into contact with
tested positive for Covid-19, according to a note sent by his
press office.
In another blow, Brazil president Jair Bolsonaro lost his
second health minister in under a month as the president’s
reopen-at-all-costs stance alienates the medical community and
deepens a political clash with state governors.
Brazil is the world’s second-largest iron ore exporter
after Australia. Shipment volumes from miner Vale SA have
already been crippled this year due to bad weather and as the
miner continues to try to emerge from a deadly dam disaster in
2019.
Bloomberg