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This live event will provide attendees with:

• Specific tools such as project plans
• Templates
• Pragmatic checklists inclusive of functioning spreadsheets beyond (EICC-GeSI) tools
• Technology decision guide
• Blue print for the integration of conflict minerals compliance solutions with broader supplier management, procurement and supply chain technologies

The afternoon round table discussions will feature an unprecedented look at upstream initiatives by specific metal.

Register here!

As we have pointed out on numerous occasions, the United States has subjected itself to a significant degree of import dependency when it comes to the supply of critical minerals – a dependency that is in many cases homegrown and unnecessary. This over-reliance on foreign mineral sources comes with many strings attached, particularly when supplier nations fall into the category of those ranked only “partly free” or “not free” on various indices measuring freedom in the world.

The term “conflict minerals” has long entered the public discourse, but has really only “taken center stage for thousands of buying organizations across the United States” with the passage of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law and respective rules handed down by the SEC in 2012. Confusion relating to the requirements for companies to disclose whether they source conflict minerals – tantalum, tin, tungsten or gold – from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and its surrounding regions looms large.

Our friends at Metal Miner, who recently released a white paper on building responsible manufacturing supply chains in the context of conflict minerals, have organized an event for May 6 in Chicago aimed at providing interested parties “the opportunity to ask their most challenging questions of some of the industry’s most knowledgeable conflict minerals experts.”

To learn more about the event titled “Conflict Minerals EDGE,” click here.

Testimony presented by Daniel McGroarty – Oversight Hearing of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Natural Resources Sub-Committee on Energy and Mineral Resources, March 21, 2013 Chairman Lamborn, my thanks to you and your colleagues on the House Sub-Committee on Energy and Mineral Resources for the opportunity to testify today. I am Daniel McGroarty, [...]

In his latest piece for Real Clear World, American Resources principal Dan McGroarty reviews the Department of Defense’s just-released National Defense Stockpile Report to Congress against the backdrop of our mineral dependencies. According to McGroarty, the report reflects a re-thinking on the part of the Pentagon, where, less than a year ago, researchers downplayed the [...]

Two years after China’s Rare Earths embargo on Japan and subsequent supply shortages put the until-then largely obscure group of critical minerals on the map, tensions between the two countries are reaching new heights, with the specter of war looming. At the heart of the current tensions lies a territorial “tug-of-war” over five tiny – [...]

Using the government studies cited in American Resources’ Critical Metals Report, we attempt to reconcile conflicting mineral lists and department definitions. We believe the American Resources “Risk Pyramid” provides a reasonable window into the federal government’s approach to the United States’ mineral supply issues. Until the U.S. Government issues a single and definitive study of [...]

What is U.S. policy on a ready supply of critical and strategic minerals? The U.S. government’s failure to speak with one voice on this key issue has led to inconsistent information concerning America’s mineral needs and a splintered policy to ensure adequate access. Conflicting federal studies make it difficult for lawmakers to pinpoint metal shortages, [...]

For some time now, quiet talk in the corners of metals conferences has turned to the question of Chinese metals smuggling, with the rare earths as Exhibit A. How extensive is REE smuggling? Simon Moores of Industrial Minerals, writing from the Industrial Minerals Congress & Exhibition (IM21) in Budapest, Hungary reports that: “Western consumers of [...]

According to a recent article in the Russian daily Pravda, Russia finds itself locked in a territorial dispute that is becoming increasingly acute. The conflict over the group of four islands, which Russia calls the “Southern Kurils” and Japan calls the “Northern Territories, is the reason why Japan and Russia never signed a peace treaty [...]

As we mark Lithium Month, a piece in the online journal ChinaDialogue.net highlights the geo-politics of lithium mining, with a full dollop of irony that our green-tech dreams — read, lithium ion batteries — may have their origins in metals that pose considerable environmental challenges as they’re extracted from the earth. The piece pivots on [...]