In line with the country’s recent policy shift towards a more active role in the global race for critical mineral resources, a German mining and commodity group has announced its plans to develop a 38,000 tonnes deposit of REEs in the East German state of Saxony. A newly formed company called Seltenerden Storkwitz AG, which to-date has received 2.2. million Euros from German investors, will kick off drilling operations in the spring of 2012.
According to the company’s CEO, the German government has been extremely supportive of the project in the context of its new mineral commodity strategy, the implementation of which has been made a priority in spite of the fact that the political agenda remains dominated by the Eurozone crisis.
Chancellor Merkel, after inking a cooperative REE development treaty with Mongolia, has traveled to resource-rich Angola and Nigeria, and is expected to sign a raw materials deal with Kazakhstan, a country known for vast deposits of manganese, tungsten, copper and molybdenum. Additional cooperative agreements will likely be sought with South Africa, Peru, and Chile.
Meanwhile, the formation of a “globally active profit-oriented raw materials corporation,” called the “Alliance for Securing Raw Materials,” has been kicked into high-gear – with the support of the German government, and Merkel as the “door opener” to leaders in resource-rich countries.
With resource prices remaining high and supply crunches reverberating in many areas, we can expect to see other countries and industry groupings undertake similar efforts. The big question for U.S. policy makers is: Are we aware of our own resource needs (and potential for that matter) and ready to act accordingly?
Those of us who follow how public policy impacts private-sector efforts to develop domestic mineral resources need to tune in to the current Capitol Hill debate on jobs and economic growth.
Senator Dean Heller (R-NV) recently introduced the Public Lands Job Creation Act, a bill that he says “willstreamline the permitting process for energy development, including mineral and renewable energy development, while also preserving the time necessary for environmental analysis.” Reports also indicate that Heller intends to attach his legislation to a larger jobs package that could be voted on as early as today.
At the heart of Heller’s language is a directive to speed up the mining permitting process in America. That legislative trigger would set a firm 45-day turnaround period for the U.S. Department of Interior (DoI) to complete its review process of any and all notices sent from state Bureau of Land Management offices.
If enacted, this timely turnaround would certainly help American companies bring new mines into production, which is critical to our nation’s resource development. According to the authoritative Behr Dolbeare annual report on mining countries, the U.S. ranks dead last in terms of the time to take to permit a new mine: 7 to 10 years on average.
It is worth noting that this bill does not seek to shortcut environmental review or safety concerns connected to mining. From what we can tell, it simply seeks to keep the review process moving forward in a timely manner – or in the United States’ case, moving forward at all.
Whether or not Congress will perceive this sort of reform as key to job creation and economic growth is anything but clear; however, what is beyond dispute is that the U.S. must find ways to increase its responsible domestic resource development. We must decrease the needless dependency on foreign metals and minerals critical to our economy and national security.
Authorities in Pima County, Ariz., have denied an air quality permit application submitted by Rosemont Copper as part of its efforts to open a new mine southeast of Tucson. Claiming the company failed to provide proper documentation, the county’s Air Quality Control district delivered the denial on Thursday, September 29. Rosemont Copper submitted its proposal for [...]
A weaker-than-expected jobs report in the U.S. has seen the price of gold soar once again. Gold’s surge and paper currency’s weakness may be related to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s plans to shift up to $6.3 billion in U.S. dollars, euros and pounds sterling to banks in China, Russia and Brazil, and to repatriate almost [...]
American Resources introduced itself to Capitol Hill staff this week, briefing Senate staff on Tuesday followed by a House briefing Wednesday. I was joined by Laura Skaer of the Northwest Mining Association (NWMA), Betty Gibbs of the Mining & Metallurgical Society of America (MMSA), and Izzy LaBranch of NWMA’s “The More You Dig” initiative. During [...]
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, [...]
American Resources has partnered with the Northwest Mining Association and their The More You Dig campaign. Here’s a guest post from their Communications consultant, Izzy LaBranch, introducing the campaign: The More You Dig campaign, a project of the Northwest Mining Association, strives to change the public’s perception of mining by educating a younger audience about how mining [...]
Earlier this week, ResourcefulEarth.org picked up on our initial calling out of a week-long campaign the environmental Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) Earthworks ran against the mining industry. Read our original post from August 12 here. The site’s follow-up post included a couple of take action items for its community, and we’d like to encourage our supporters [...]
How do you break into the headlines these days – with Wall Street reeling, London burning, and carnage in the streets of Syria? A little hysteria helps. That’s the tactic employed by Earthworks, an environmental Non-Government Organization (NGO). The group has been running a national campaign this week aimed at pressuring the EPA to provide [...]
Two Alaska mining projects may begin production ahead of schedule thanks to priority permits granted by the U.S. Forest Service. As reported by the website ResourcefulEarth.org, the agency approved exploratory drilling permits for Ucore Rare Metals Inc.’s Bokan Mountain site in Southeast Alaska, which is expected to develop rare earths as well as potentially high [...]
