Australian miner Atlas Mining has signed price "fairness" agreements with Chinese steel mills considering the uncertainty over future iron ore prices, Reuters quoted the company's chief executive as saying yesterday.

"We've got agreements that are based upon a benchmark but if the spot price varies above or below the benchmark at a certain point... we would get half of the upside, but we also share half of the downside," Managing Director David Flanagan said at the Diggers and Dealers mining conference in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia.

The agreements come at a time when the annual price talks between Chinese steel mills and global miners have reached a stalemate after the detention of four Shanghai-based employees of Rio Tinto on charges of commercial espionage.