全球金属与采矿业距离西芒杜还有六个月？不……但铁矿石市场出现下行……下调铁矿石相关公司（必和必拓）的目标价 评级

Guinea’s Prime Minister, Amadou Oury Bah, declared last week that November 25th, 2025,will see the first Simandou iron ore train arrive at port. RIO CEO Jakob Stausholm declares“Simandou is progressing at the speed of light”. Simandou at 120 MT potential is the largestiron ore development in the world. What will its arrival portend for iron ore? Not doom, norgloom, but a shift in midcycle iron ore that arrives faster than we had previously believed.We take the “over” on where longer price settles out (versus buyside conversations),but acknowledge that declining price and investor concerns are likely inconsistent withoutsized performance of the iron ore names.We highlight physical progress on Simandou (Exhibit 1).We layout the cadence of iron ore supply demand in the next few years (Exhibit 5).We expand on three key themes to watch:Thesis #1 Simandou will tip the iron ore market into surplus. While its impact onprices will be finite, it may be less severe than anticipated.Just accounting for existingmines and committed projects, the market is heading into a 120-250Mt overcapacity by2030. Capitalism will not allow excessive deficit/surplus to happen as price will adjust tobalance supply and demand. Hence, iron ore price is expected to drop to a point wherehigher-cost mines are forced to go into C&M, helping to bring supply back in line. Assuminga 40% LT mid-cycle sector margin,real prices are likely to stabilize around $79-85/tCFR (2025$), instead of the feared $60-70/t range (Exhibit 26 - Exhibit 28). Adjusting forinflation, we might see $90/t (nominal) by 2030.Thesis #2 The Chinese construction sector is still weak, but the shifts towardsadvanced manufacturing continues.“Ghost space” - unfinished building that’s not underconstruction - continues to grow beyond 7Bn sqm (Exhibit 37). For the first time, net flooradditions (floor area started minus finished) has turned negative as more projects are beingcompleted than initiated. Further, the shifts towards advanced manufacturing (and gridexpansion) continue (Exhibit 35). It’s interesting to note that iron ore has averaged $112/t CFR in the past 3 years during this transition (and $103/t in the past 1y). Lastly, Chinais moving towards a consumption-driven economic model - which implies lower steelintensity. Hence, steel demand is expected to remain relatively flat (but not fall off the cliff!)despite rising GDP.Thesis #3 High-grade premia are likely to stay low in the short-term but mightexpand in the long-term as the steel industry accelerates its transition from BOF toEAF.The price premium for high-grade iron ore is influenced by steel mill profits (Exhibit44). Given many steelmakers are working on very thin margins due to industry overcapacity,we don’t expect premia to recover in the short-term. However, as China is curbing excesscapacity and the steel industry decarbonize, we are likely to see premia expansion in thenext few years.www.bernsteinresearch.com Iron ore/steel overview.We provide a complete review of our current iron ore/steeloutlook.We move from slightly ahead of the street on our long term forecast to align moreclosely with it (Exhibit 17). The long term price setting mechanism is margin reversion(Exhibit 16), and using a LT mid-cycle margin of 40%, we are likely to see $90/t by 2030.The nearer-term decline impacts 2026e iron ore price and company EBITDA (which driveshalf of our price target).Within our coverage RIO, BHP, VALE, and AAL all have exposure to iron ore.Wereduce BHP’s price target by 5% to GBP 19/sh (no upside) and move to Market-Perform.We trim RIO’s price target by 10% to GBP 56/sh (20% upside) and retain our Outperformrating (Oyu Tolgoi copper growth/Simandou iron ore growth potentially offsetting iron oreprice softening). We remain Market-Perform on AAL, reducing target prices by 4% to GBP22/sh (6% upside). We remain Market-Perform on VALE, reducing target prices by 7% toUSD 11.25/sh (15% upside).We include overall big picture that the iron ore market will be well supplied over thenext decade (Exhibit 14). We expect iron ore demand to grow at an annual rate of 0.5%through 2030 (Exhibit 8), driven by steel demand growing at 1.3% CAGR and real GDPgrowing at 2.6% CAGR over the same period. On the supply side, we anticipate robustsupply growth of 2.2% p.a. through 2030 (Exhibit 11), with scrap production growing evenmore rapidly at 3.0% CAGR.Risks to our incrementally negative thesis:Chinese stimulus (especially related to thefive-year plan) in excess of what we expect. Project delays at Simandou delaying ramp.Disruptions in excess of historic averages.2 BERNSTEIN TICKER TABLETickerRatingAAL.LNMOLDBHP.AUMOLDOBHPMOLDOBHP.LNMOLDORIO.LNOOLDRIOOOLDRIO.AUOOLDVALEMOLDVALE3.BZMOLDEDMASIAXSPXEMRATING CHANGE / PRICE TARGET CHANGE / ESTIMATE CHANGE IN BOLDO - Outperform, M - Market-Perform, U - Underperform, NR - Not Rated, CS - Coverage SuspendedSource: Bloomberg, Bernstein estimates and analysis.INVESTMENT IMPLICATIONSWe maintain our Outp