Iron ore futures posted weekly gains for a third week in a row, benefiting from strong expectations of more stimulus to be rolled out to help the bumpy post-COVID-19 economic economy in top steel consumer China.

Futures prices of the steelmaking ingredient were little changed on Friday amid mixed market signals.

The most-traded September iron ore on the Dalian Commodity Exchange (DCE) ended daytime trading 0.12% higher at 815 yuan ($114.48) a metric ton, posting a weekly gain of 2.4%.

The benchmark July iron ore (SZZFN3) on the Singapore Exchange was 0.2% higher at $113.6 a metric ton, as of 0700 GMT, the highest since April 12 and up 4.3% within the week.

A rise in iron ore inventories at both mills and ports weighed on both Dalian and Singapore benchmark contract prices in early trade, but they later regained lost ground, supported by relatively steady demand.

Portside inventory at 45 ports surveyed by consultancy Mysteel climbed about 2% week-on-week to 128.5 million metric tons this week so far, while that at mills rose 0.16% on the week to 84.84 million metric tons after falling for six consecutive weeks.

“The optimal choice is to secure cargoes from ports after the rising premiums of seaborne cargoes have squeezed import margins,” said Pei Hao, a Shanghai-based senior analyst at the international brokerage firm FIS.

“Since the value of portside cargoes is lower than that of seaborne ones, so we see a downward correction in the futures prices.”

Steel mills still need to replenish iron ore to sustain production in the near-term due to improved margins and low iron ore inventory at mills, Huatai Futures analysts said in a note.

Profitability among 247 surveyed steel mills jumped to 51.95% from 43.75% last week, while the daily average hot metal output rose 0.7% on the week to 2.43 million metric tons, Mysteel data showed.

Coking coal and coke (DCJcv1), the other steelmaking ingredients, gained 2.68% and 1.8%, respectively.

Rebar on the Shanghai Futures Exchange added 1.5%, hot-rolled coil climbed 1.19%, wire rod (SWRcv1) rose 0.9% and stainless steel strengthened 0.39%.

($1 = 7.1192 Chinese yuan)