Yangtze River Waterway Iron Ore Transportation System

The iron ore transportation system of Yangtze River area has great significance in our country's iron ore transportation system. For China, the Yangtze River area is one of the most important areas for the layout of steel industry. The throughput of steels in this area has developed year after year. The development of the steel throughput sharply increased the raw materials demand. Since the original home resource of iron ore reduced constantly, the steel plants along the Yangtze River has begun to seek and import iron ores from abroad by waterway. But this kind of transport should pass through three different areas, ocean, offshore and inland waterway, thus it makes the whole transport system of iron ore become extremely complex.After imported iron ore is discharged in the leading capesize ports, such as Beilun, Shanghai and Majishan, this is the start of a process invisible to most overseas observers. Mills use handysize bulkers and barges to carry the imported iron ore for discharge at ports like Nantong, Zhenjiang and Nanjing for further distribution. As the most important import port, Ningbo port faced the congested problems with multi-level transportation, which lowered efficiency of steel plants. Now central government is pouring billions into projects to widen and deepen the river and upgrade ports. After that, Nanjng and Nantong ports will become the long distance port, who can load the ship which partly loaded in Ningbo port.This paper focused on the iron ore transportation system of Yangtze River area. Firstly introduce the exploitation of iron ores in worldwide and our country; then analyze the demand and need condition of steel factories in Yangtze River area; next, we use several methods to forecast the volume of demand of iron ores of Yangtze River area and every port; at last we put forward the arrangement of these ports for the transportation of iron ores, and this will be the consultative opinions to the development of the iron ore transportation system of Yangtze River area.