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"Spot iron ore prices weresteady on Wednesday, with weak steel demand in top importerChina curbing gains from port shutdowns in Australia.    A tropical storm intensifying off Australia's northwestcoast brought nearly half of the world's iron ore trade to ahalt, idling huge ports used by miners Rio Tinto  and BHP Billiton .     The interruption at port operations is likely to supportprices of the steelmaking raw material even as Chinese steelmills slowed down buying after building up stockpiles.    &amp;quot;Offers are still at high levels, but mills' buying interesthas faded, and I expect them to suspend buying next week aheadof the Lunar New Year holiday,&amp;quot; said a Shanghai-based iron oretrader.    Iron ore with 62 percent iron content .IO62-CNI=SI, theindustry benchmark, stood unchanged at $145.90 a tonne onTuesday, according to data from the Steel Index.      Chinese steel market activities typically grind to a halt inthe two weeks before China's week-long Lunar New Year holiday,which falls in mid-February this year.     Shanghai rebar prices were nearly flat on Wednesday amidweak winter season demand, with cold temperatures in northernregions forcing the suspension of construction activities.     &amp;quot;Steel futures have risen a lot on improving expectations ondemand and surging costs, while the physical market hasn'tcaught up due to tepid (spot) demand,&amp;quot; said a Shanghai-basedsteel futures broker.     &amp;quot;Prices may not rise immediately after the Lunar New Yearholiday but prices should show upward trend as the economyrevives.&amp;quot;    The most active rebar contract for May settlement on theShanghai Futures Exchange traded 0.13 percent higher bymidday break from Tuesday.    Shanghai rebar futures and iron ore indexes at 0343 GMT                                                                                           Contract                          Last    Change  Pct Change                             SHANGHAI REBAR*                   3992      5.00        0.13                                                                                           THE STEEL INDEX 62 PCT INDEX     145.9      0.00        0.00  METAL BULLETIN INDEX            148.07      2.81        1.93                                                                                           *In yuan/tonne                                                                           #Index in dollars/tonne, show close for the previous trading day  (Editing by Tom Hogue)"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://in.reuters.com/article/markets-ironore-idINL4N0AS1N720130123>