copper

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 may be taking advantage of its rare earths dominance.

Not only is an Indian government panel preparing a strategy paper emphasizing the need for domestic exploration of REE’s (according to a Mineweb.com story), but the country is also reportedly funding a rare earths plant to the tune of 1.4 billion rupees ($32 million USD).

Acknowledging that resource dependency issues stretch beyond rare earths, the Indian public policy debate is zeroing in on the broader critical minerals supply issues.  In light of “the proliferation of trade-distorting measures by emerging economies such as China,” which according to one Indian expert also applies to copper, aluminum, nickel, molybdenum, manganese, magnesium, tungsten, and indium; analysts lament the curtailment of domestic production and call for policy measures to secure supply of these strategic minerals.

As U.S. lawmakers return to Capitol Hill following the August District Work Period, they, too, would be well advised to shift their attention to the global race for resources. That means prioritizing policy measures to alleviate our unnecessary dependence on foreign critical minerals, and turning our focus toward the mineral riches beneath our own soil.

Our Director of Research, Sandra Wirtz, unearthed this piece from the Time Magazine online archives  – “Strategic Metal: #1,” dateline October 13, 1941 – just weeks before Pearl Harbor.  It inspired me to do a little research on my own, with an eye toward our present-day approach to strategic metals.

With war raging in Europe, Time Magazine was reporting on U.S. demand for manganese, which was critical to steel manufacture.  Time noted that the U.S., at the time, was producing just 10 percent of its annual need from domestic mines – most of it as a by-product from a copper mine in Montana.

In 1941, our biggest foreign manganese supplier was Russia, providing 25 percent.  But Time observed that Nazi forces had just taken over a key mining region in Ukraine, interrupting Russian supply.  Fortunately – especially so few weeks from the Pearl Harbor attack – the U.S. had hoarded two years’ worth of manganese in the National Defense Stockpile.

Fast forward to present day:  America currently produces 0 percent of its annual Manganese usage. The last U.S. manganese mine stopped operating in 1970 – importing 100 percent, with our leading suppliers being South Africa, Gabon, and China.  Our U.S. stockpile has a “negative balance” (some sort of government accounting legerdemain seems at work here.  Let’s hope we don’t “owe” the U.S. stockpile some of the manganese we’re already not producing).

Hopefully, there’s not another Pearl Harbor on the horizon.  But then, that’s what we thought the day that Time Magazine hit the newsstands on October 13, 1941.

Can crime be a leading economic indicator?  That’s the question occasioned by a growing number of news stories. Sarasota County’s (FL) Herald Tribune this week features a story of an arrest of 62 people for stealing anything from air conditioners to copper wiring to plumbing parts. West Virginia’s Westport News reports the arrest of two [...]

History is typically difficult to see up close, but it’s possible that resources are sparking a great geo-political reordering on par with the mass discoveries of oil that made the Middle East a rising economic power the mid-20th Century.  Witness the country of Mongolia, a geo-political pawn for much of the last hundred years, but [...]

A handful of countries situated near the top of the world are racing to firm up their territorial claims to untold amounts of oil, natural gas, gold, zinc, copper and other metals. A new piece from the U.K. Guardian highlights this renewed scramble for resource rights beneath the Arctic icecap. I treated this story in [...]

In what may become the most expensive diversified minerals takeover to-date, China and Brazil appear set to engage in a strategic battle over copper deposits in Africa, according to Bloomberg.  In line with China’s recent efforts to enlarge its footprint in Africa in its quest for natural resources, China’s Jinchuan Group is considering countering Rio de Janeiro-based Vale’s [...]

A new piece in the New Scientist underlines the importance of strategic metals to our new economy — from tech toys like the iPad and smart phones to green-tech applications ranging from solar panels to wind turbines. The Tellurium in the title is an element critical to new solar panel applications. As New Scientist puts [...]

The election victory of leftist Peruvian presidential candidate Ollanta Humala in this week’s runoff election has instilled fears of higher taxes and new restrictive policies in the mining sector.  Peru is a leading producer of precious metals, and the U.S. relies heavily on Peruvian imports of zinc, tin, gold, copper, and silver. (To see exactly [...]

Tuesday, May 24th at 9:00 a.m. EST, I will be testifying on behalf of ARPN before the House Committee on Natural Resources’ Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources, which is holding a hearing on the issue of “domestic minerals supplies and demands in a time of foreign supply disruption.” Download and read the release announcing [...]

As Reuters reports, indications are that Americans could soon be buying Zambian or Saudi Arabian copper from Canada and China. Canada’s Barrick, the world’s largest gold mining company, is attempting to win a geopolitical bidding war with its Chinese competitor Minmetal in the effort to gain control over two valuable copper mines in Zambia and [...]