For the past 40 years, global miners and steelmakers have maintained a tacit agreement: security of supply in exchange for annual prices at a premium above the spot market.

The unspoken deal showed its first cracks last year. But it has been during the 2009-10 ongoing price negotiation that it has become evident that the system, which is known as the benchmark because the first settlement between a big mill and a miner is followed by the rest of the industry, could see its days numbered.