Iron ore prices are improving, and it spells good news for Australian miners. Reports from proactiveinvestors Australia said that at China's Tianjin port, price of the key steelmaking ingredient has reached $137 a tonne.

The higher price, when mixed with the weaker Australian currency which is now down to 92.98 cents, translates into an actual iron ore price of $147.34 per tonne.

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The situation boosts the revenues of Pilbara producers which actually have operating costs less than $40 to $45 per tonne, but likewise applies to other iron ore producers that have higher operating costs in the range of $70-$85 a tonne.

The increase in iron ore prices, which reached a two-month high in China last week, is explained to the boost in Chinese economy as millers stocked 74.4 million tonnes of the commodity as of Nov 8.

Steel futures in Shanghai also advanced 8.5 per cent, improving from a nine-month low in June.

With more of the key steelmaking ingredient on their hands, steel production in Chine for September went up 13 per cent compared to a year ago. Beside the higher demand for the alloy from the second-largest economy in the world, global demand for iron ore is anticipated to rise 3.3 per cent to 1.523 billion tonnes in 2013, up from the 3.1 per cent boost logged for 2013.

The higher prices indicated how off mark analysts were in their prediction for iron ore prices for 2013 even as they forecast that the price of that commodity would go down between $100 and $120 per tonne in 2014.

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