None agreed.

CISA had earlier refused to budge from its call for a 45 percent discount.

"We don't see this pricing agreement as relevant to our pricing for fiscal 2009," Gervase Greene, a spokesman for Rio Tinto, said last week.

A senior executive of BHP China told Chinese media the company also would not agree to the same price as FMG.

"We imported iron ore from Australia or Brazil miners at the benchmark price that they offered to Japan and Korea, but if the benchmark price is finalized with China, we will be refunded or charged by the miners according to the difference," said an anonymous source from a large Chinese steel mill.

The annual price talks between the three global iron ore miners and China's steel industry have been deadlocked for months after China refused to accept the 33 and 28 percent cuts offered by Australia miners and Brazilian miner Vale, respectively.

"If you have a contract (that) is being honored, you sell, you receive, what do you need to negotiate?" asked Agnelli. "Everything is fine ... We're not negotiating anything."

Agnelli said the accord was "evidently fair" since spot prices "were much higher than contract prices" and the company was honoring the provisional contracts.

"The tough attitude from the three global miners means they will not accept CISA's proposal and they are quite bullish on the Chinese market. The demand is always there," Hu said.

China's crude steel output could hit a record in August. Data from CISA showed daily production ran at 1.67 million tons in the first 10 days of the month, up 10 percent on early July.

(China Daily August 28, 2009)