Steelmakers Turn Away From Two Major Iron Ore Merchants After Document Worries

Chinese Buyers Pull Away

Radiant World and Sapphire Minmetals are the kind of companies that are huge inside their industry and invisible outside it. That changed this week.

So many buyers pulled away that the companies are struggling to move multiple shipments right now.

Buyers are acting on their doubts. On Monday, Liuzhou Iron & Steel Co. of Guangxi held a tender for ore, Radiant submitted the cheapest bid, and the steelmaker canceled the tender anyway, launching a new one the next day with Radiant barred.

State-owned traders are pulling back too, and at least two of the three big Xiamen conglomerates, Xiamen ITG Group, Xiamen Xiangyu Group, and Xiamen C&D, have recently stopped iron-ore deals with one or both companies.

One planned Sapphire ore sale to a Xiamen buyer collapsed after the buyer backed out, despite an agreed price.

The Allegations Behind the Pullback

The trouble started with a Bloomberg report last week saying several large commodity trading firms had stopped working with Radiant over suspected fake documents supplied to banks for ore trades. Around the same time, Vitol Group told Jefferies Financial Group that some bills behind Jefferies' funding of Sapphire were not genuine.

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The allegations spread fast. Deutsche Bank AG and KBC Group NV froze some Radiant accounts in Singapore, and other banks cut credit lines.

Vale SA and Rio Tinto Group, the two largest iron ore miners in the world, removed Radiant from their lists of approved customers.

Radiant is not a minor player. It started in India in 2003, entered China in 2008, and after a 10-year expansion it became one of China's largest foreign ore traders.

Ownership is where the two companies start looking connected. Pinkesh Nahar, 45, owns Radiant, and filings show Sapphire Chairman Rakesh Sethi owns a majority of Sapphire's parent.

This week, Glencore CEO Gary Nagle described the two firms as one group, pointing to what he called "similar shareholdings and management." Sapphire insists it is independent, and Sethi calls the idea "totally wrong."

Radiant says it "conducts its business to the highest commercial and legal standards," and its spokesperson said the company "does not comment publicly on individual counterparty relationships, specific trading activity or commercial positions." Sethi says he does not want to be "dragged into any controversy" or have his comments "misconstrued and misinterpreted."

What This Means for Investors

China buys roughly 60% of all the iron ore sold in the world, which makes Chinese steelmakers the customer base that sets the tone. When they get nervous, prices move.

As of August 7, 2026, Radiant still has six shipments totaling more than 1 million tons of ore on offer for dollar sales to Chinese buyers, plus stockpiles at Chinese ports for yuan sales. That is a lot of material sitting around while buyers decide who to trust.

Commodity traders are the middlemen between miners and steelmakers, lining up cargoes, arranging payment, and handling the paperwork that proves the ore exists and the price is real. When that paperwork gets questioned, lenders and customers react fast.

Most everyday investors will never come across Radiant or Sapphire by name. But iron ore is the raw ingredient for steel, which means it flows through mining stocks, industrial companies, and broad index funds, so when the world's biggest buyer starts questioning a supplier's documents, the ripple reaches further than the cargo ships.

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