India

American Resource’s Copper Month may have ended, but copper demand continues to show strength, in spite of a global economy that is anemic at best.  Reuters reports a rapid depletion of current copper stocks, contrary to the macro-economic news of slowing global growth.  American Resources will leave month-to-month fluctuations in copper and other metals markets to the commodities traders; longer-term trends – including the migration of more than a billion people in China and India from subsistence to some semblance of middle class existence over the next decade – will drive global demand for copper and several dozen other metals and minerals.

The larger question is how the world will source these metals – and how the U.S. will continue to enjoy surety of supply.   Today, “Resource Wars” is a metaphor.  If we don’t press forward with domestic resource development, get ready for a world where Resource Wars are the real thing.

The Indian Express ran an excellent article this week on India’s efforts to develop a mineral strategy.  The piece gives a broad overview on the global context of the critical mineral mining environment from an Indian perspective. It points out that China not only accounts for more than 90 percent of global REE supply, but is also among the top three producers of 10 out of the 12 “strategic minerals and metals” Indian planners have put into this category.

India’s first attempt at developing a cohesive mineral strategy centers around stockpiling, research and development, incentivizing by-product recovery, setting up a stakeholder network, and removing bureaucratic obstacles which are in large part to blame for India’s late start in the global resource game. As the Indian Express explains:

Lack of access to best-technology practices due to restrictive regimes, coupled with the larger problem of a protectionist environment that did not incentivise innovation, meant that critical strategic industries — nuclear, space, defence and communications — depended on high-technology imports which got progressively more difficult for largely non-economic reasons.

While overall circumstances may be different, unfortunately, part of this description rings all too familiar. Current attempts to make the U.S. a serious competitor in the global race for resources and to overhaul our own critical minerals strategy are up against similar “restrictive regimes” as the ones described by the Indian Express – an onerous regulatory framework to which the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) continues to add new layers, and a misguided “not-in-my-backyard” mentality.  India is looking to correct its past mistakes – are we ready to do the same?

As China continues its geopolitical rare earths power play, Japan and India are the latest countries to partner in an attempt to offset China’s near total supply monopoly.  According to the Asia News Network, the foreign ministers of the two countries agreed in late October to promote the joint development of the critical minerals at [...]

In today’s globalized world, it doesn’t take a seat at the decision-making table for one nation to influence another’s domestic policies – a near-monopoly on critical mineral resources will do.  A case in point is India, which, after a seven-year hiatus, is expanding its indigenous Rare Earth Element (REE) production over growing concerns that China [...]

According to news reports, India has discovered what its government claims could be the world’s largest uranium reserves in a mine due to start operating by the end of the year.  The nation’s Department of Atomic Energy recently confirmed that the Tumalapalli mine in the southern state of Andrha Pradesh holds 49,000 metric tons of uranium, [...]

On the heels of the discovery of a significant rare earths find in Madagascar announced by Mumbai-based Varun Industries earlier this month, the Indian government has been quick to lock up a purchase agreement with the Madagascar unit of the company, Varun Energy Corp.  According to the memorandum of understanding, Varun Energy Corp. will sell [...]

While a rare earths find on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean has misleadingly been heralded as a solution to China’s near-total rare earths monopoly (to find out why this claim is misleading, click here), a second rare earths discovery earlier this month was barely noticed, in spite of its greater potential to challenge China: [...]

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Globe Metals and Mining has discovered significant rare earths deposits at its exploration site Mount Muambe in Mozambique. This positive exploration result will likely further strengthen China’s quasi-monopoly position when it comes to rare earths, as the Chinese state-owned East China Minerals Exploration and Development Bureau only two months [...]