The price of iron ore has risen for a third consecutive session, leading the commodity to a near four-month high.

At the end of the latest session, benchmark iron ore for immediate delivery to the port of Tianjin in China was trading at $US63.50 a tonne, up 1.4 per cent from its prior close of $US62.60 a tonne.

The commodity is now at its highest level since mid-February and more than 35 per cent above the 10-year low of $US46.70 a tonne reached in early April.

Driving the gains has been positive signs of rising demand and reports of falling stockpiles at Chinese ports, with the gains coming counter to persistent negative sentiment from analysts.

Most investment banks still foresee further heavy falls for the commodity, with the likes of Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and Citi seeing a collapse into the $US30s a possibility and UBS this week forecasting a fall to $US45 a tonne before year’s end.

The bearish outlook is largely based on expectations for sharp lifts in supply as Gina Rinehart’s giant Roy Hill mine begins operations and Vale, Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton all expand production.

Already the rising ore price is having an impact on production with the latest data from Port Hedland, the world’s largest iron ore export terminal, showing a 5.2 per cent lift in exports to China in May as Australia’s iron ore suppliers capitalised on the mild reversal in fortunes.

The production tactics of the nation’s big two miners — Rio and BHP — have been the subject of much debate over the past 12 months, with Glencore again criticising the tactics of the two heavyweights this week.

“The numbers speak for themselves — if you go back a couple of years, there were 500 million tonnes of (annual) export at $US100 a tonne,” Glencore coal mining chief Peter Freyberg said yesterday.

“That’s versus 700 million tonnes of exports today at $US60, so there’s a whole lot of revenue that’s gone missing following a bunch of investment.

“At the end of the day ... the returns to Australia — into superannuation funds, through royalties, through taxes — it’s been a negative exercise.”

Despite the positive run of black sessions for iron ore, the London-listed stock of Rio and BHP slumped in overnight trade, with the former losing 1.1 per cent and BHP yielding 3.2 per cent.