China

Bloomberg reports that “Chinese interest in Greenland’s mineral wealth is reigniting the Arctic island’s campaign to sever ties with Denmark after almost 200 years of colonial rule.”

According to a February 24 story, calls for the territory’s independence are growing louder as Denmark, which controls Greenland’s foreign policy, opposes Greenland’s plan to cooperate with Chinese companies to develop its vast mineral resources. A formal proposal to break with Denmark was submitted earlier in February by Greenland’s second largest party, as political delays are hampering progress on exploration efforts:

(…) Greenlanders are eager to prevent political delays from Denmark hampering their dream of tapping their mineral wealth. The island is struggling to get projects off the ground after the financial crisis curtailed investments. Oil and gas explorers have spent more than $1 billion on failed attempts to discover oil, further jeopardizing continued investor interest.

These developments bear testimony to the growing importance of resource policy, and its far-reaching implications for other areas, such as geopolitics, as a Danish policy maker recently made clear to parliament:

“It’s not an unimportant issue we have on our hands,” Claus Hjort-Frederiksen, the former Liberal Party finance minister, told parliament in Copenhagen on Jan. 23. “This may allow for 3,000-4,000 underpaid Chinese miners to arrive in Greenland. There are geopolitical concerns. Chinese interest in the Arctic is no minor matter.”

Read more about Greenland’s resource potential in Daniel McGroarty’s 2009 piece for RealClearWorld.

We’ve seen a flurry of new studies focused on mineral resource security over the past few months, an encouraging signal that the issue is increasingly getting the attention it deserves. While we would be remiss not to include our Critical Metals Report and our Gateway Metals Report, two of the more recent studies were released by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and, just this week, the RAND Corporation.

While ALEC’s report is more narrowly tailored and focuses specifically on Rare Earths and Uranium mining potential in the United States, RAND’s “Critical Materials Present Danger to U.S. Manufacturing” study examines a broader set of minerals which are produced in one or just a few countries, and which meet the following criteria:

• The dominant producer is outside the United States.
• The United States has appreciable net imports.
• The dominant producers have shortfalls in their quality of governance, as measured by the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) published by the World Bank.

China, being the dominant producer for a number of key critical minerals, has more than once demonstrated its willingness to resort to market distortions – policies which, according to RAND, suggest the need for two types of actions:

(1) those that can increase resiliency to supply disruptions or market distortions and
(2) those that can provide early warning of developing problems resulting from the concentration of production.

What better way to “increase resiliency” than diversifying sources of supply by developing the resources we have beneath our own soil?

In yet another comprehensive piece for Resource Investor Aheadoftheherd.com host and Northern Venture Group President Rick Mills discusses the issue of global resource insecurity. Pointing out a long list of “serious concerns in regards to global resource extraction that we need to consider,” Mills’ piece zeroes in on costs, resource nationalism, civil unrest directed towards [...]

The global race for resources has countries look for new ways to meet their mineral resource needs. We’re now used to seeing headlines about mineral riches in the Arctic, beneath the ocean seabed, and even asteroid mining. The latest region in the cross-hairs is Antarctica, with – you guessed it – China aggressively pursuing its [...]

In his latest column for Real Clear World, American Resources Principal Daniel McGroarty zeros in on China’s dominance of the Rare Earths market. Invoking lopsided production numbers – in spite of international efforts to develop Rare Earths outside of China, China’s supply monopoly still hovers at 95 percent – McGroarty likens China’s REE control to [...]

Below is part two of American Resources’ three-part 2012 retrospective. Check out part one here. Traditionally, the New Year is the time when people reflect on the past twelve months and formulate resolutions for the months ahead. As the first hours of 2013 have been dominated by the drama the Fiscal Cliff, our Federal lawmakers [...]

According to media reports surfacing this week, China is looking to cut essentially cut mining rights for REE producers in half – to 67 points down from 113. Analysts tie the move into China’s overall effort to “strengthen its pricing power in the international rare earth market.” This wouldn’t be the first time China, which [...]

This week, the San Francisco Chronicle zeroed in on Rare Earths. Pointing to the “cultural necessity” of REEs – columnist Brooks Mencher calls them “as critical to the Age of Technology as cement and steel were to the Age of Industry” – the article discusses the relevance of Rare Earths against the backdrop of China’s [...]

International supply woes for Antimony may see an easing going forward as an Italian mining project progresses. According to The Telegraph, Canada-based Androit Resources expects to get its permits for exploratory drilling in Southern Tuscany within weeks. As with virtually any mining project, there is local opposition to the project based on environmental concerns, but [...]

Metal prices may be sluggish, but type in the key words “metal theft,” and any news search will yield at least ten stories from local papers on stolen copper wires, scrap metal, or parts from street lights or a/c units. Metal theft is far more than local petty crime, however, and its far-reaching implications have [...]