Metals

• Report From the Molycorp Mountain Pass Mine

  When I heard that Molycorp (MCP) had just cratered by $22 from $53 to $31 in two days, I did what I usually do when a mining company I follow gets in trouble. I jumped into an airplane and flew over the pit, making sure that it was still there. I also go into the local bar and talked to the workers with my antennae out to detect any unreported problems. For good measure, I threw a compass and a few extra bottles of water into the cockpit in case I crash landed in the desert and had to hike…

• China’s Rare Earths Monopoly - Peril or Opportunity?

  The prosperity of China’s “authoritarian capitalism” is increasingly rewriting the ground-rules worldwide on the capitalist principles that have dominated the West’s economy for nearly two centuries. Nowhere is this shadow war more between the two systems more pronounced than in the global arena of production of rare earths elements (RREs), where China currently holds a de facto monopoly, raising concerns from Washington through London to Tokyo about what China might do with its hand across the throat of high-end western technology. In the capitalist West, as so convincingly dissected by Karl Marx, such a commanding position is a supreme and…

• China, Japan Minuet Around the Issue of Rare Earths

  It’s official – China’s de facto monopoly on current rare earths production is a threat to the global economy. As least, that was the gist of hearings on 21 September by the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific. Center for a New American Security fellow Christine Parthemore ominously intoned, "Reliable access to critical minerals is a matter of both economic and geostrategic importance to the United States. Today, no minerals are more troubling to U.S. security and foreign policy than rare earth elements. Supplies are concentrated mostly in the hands of one…

• Have Gold Prices Finally Peaked?

  Gold slipped below $1,800 per ounce last week as equities rallied in a burst of risk on investor enthusiasm. Does this spell the end of the bull run? The gold price has seen a lot of volatility of late and questions are being asked — not least by those holding long positions — as to what the future for gold prices holds in store. GFMS, the precious metals consultancy, is understandably still bullish. In their recent quarterly Gold Survey, they are quoted by the Telegraph as saying, “Given strong demand for bullion from the public and private sectors … the…

• European Union to Stockpile Rare Earth Elements

  In the light of the Chinese hegemony for its own energy projects, it is feared that restrictions in the global supply of rare earth elements (REEs)will ensue. Until last year, China provided some 97% of the REEs available in the world, which are used increasingly to fabricate the magnets in wind-turbines and in electric vehicles. As China expands its own use of energy, including that from renewable sources, the nation intends to hold-back its exports of REEs for its own use, with potential impacts on the development of renewable energy such as from wind across the world. Last year's abrupt…

• China Using Rare Earths as a Weapon

  China is currently responsible for more than 90 percent of the worlds rare-earth production, and some analysts allege that China is using its de facto monopoly to lure a high tech companies to China.  U.S. Magnetic Materials Association president  Ed Richardson said, "We're all losing. They (the Chinese) are using their monopoly of rare earths as a weapon. And they're going to get what they need." Richardson added that rare earth element (REE) mining projects currently being pursued by companies worldwide from Mongolia to Africa to counteract the Chinese de facto REE monopoly either will begin significant production too late…

• China - Record High Rare Earths Prices Promoting Illegal Mining

  Six months ago, China's exports of rare earth elements (RREs) breached the dizzying price of $100,000 per-ton barrier, a nearly 900 percent increase in prices from a year before, representing a remarkable $50 per pound for unprocessed ore. According to the CIA World Factbook, the estimated 2010 annual income for Chinese citizens overall was $7,600, or a princely $633 per month, or 12.6 lbs of raw rare earth ore, not that the excavators get anywhere near that final amount.As a rough rule of thumb, the further one goes westwards from China’s coastal regions, with its prosperous cities like Shanghai, Hong…

• Don’t Count on Gold in a Downturn

  The way the price of gold keeps rising, a person might think that no matter what the downturn, gold would prove to be a good investment. I think that if things don’t fall apart too much, gold will be an OK investment. If things really start falling apart, though, it is not clear that gold will work nearly as well, especially if we expect gold to function as a currency itself. If things don’t fall apart too much If we keep teetering on the edge, but our current financial system remains in place, gold seems likely to be a good…

• China and Rare Earths - Monopoly for Now

  First, the bad news - China's constrained rare earth supplies will be an "irreversible trend" and prices will remain at high levels, according to Zhang Zhong, general manager of Inner Mongolia Baotou Steel Rare-Earth Hi-Tech Co. Zhang should know, as his concern is China’s leading rare earths producer – the Baatou mine produces more than 95 percent of China’s production, while Chinese mines currently account for 97 percent of global supplies. The increase in global demand for rare earth metals has sent prices soaring in world markets. According to the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association, since January rare earth metal…

• Mongolia Energy Riches Attract Neighbors and Outside Interests

  Pity poor Mongolia, bereft of fiscal resources, caught between the ambitions of its superpower neighbors, Russia and China. Ulaan Bator’s situation is akin to interwar Poland, dexterously attempting to reconcile its foreign policy between the USSR’s hammer and Nazi Germany’s hard place. Who will ultimately benefit is anyone’s guess, but the country’s nascent energy and mineralogical riches  have opened the land of Genghis Khan to a fierce bidding war those ultimate outcome is unclear at best. The nation is essentially empty, its 2.8 million citizens producing an average population density of just over 1 person per sq. km. That said,…