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Chinese Rare Earths Producer Suspends Output
concealment writes "State-owned Baotou Steel Rare Earth (Group) Hi-tech Co. said in a statement released through the Shanghai Stock Exchange that it suspended production Tuesday to promote 'healthy development' of rare earths prices. It gave no indication when production would resume and phone calls to the company on Thursday were not answered. Beijing is tightening control over rare earths mining and exports to capture more of the profits that flow to Western makers of lightweight batteries and other products made of rare earths. China has about 30 percent of rare earths deposits but accounts for more than 90 percent of production. Beijing alarmed global manufacturers by imposing export quotas in 2009. It also is trying to force Chinese rare earths miners and processors to consolidate into a handful of government-controlled groups."
Sounds short-sighted. Since rare-earths are a commodity, this will just drive prices up and thus other people will mine them. Businesses may even prefer these new sources for stability. Then prices will crash as a glut of supply hits the market, and the unreliable producer will command an even lower price.
Or the market could do something totally unpredictable :)
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
It is not about mining. That is not their monopoly, their monopoly is on the production of the minerals to usable components. This unfortunately is not easily solved. A full scale production facility takes about a decade to build and about 1 Billion dollars. There was a private investor who was discussing this issue about 5 years ago and was trying to get investors to go in on building a new facility but was unable to get the needed amount of capital.
It is about mining, too. It takes time to develop mines.
A huge, truly massive deposit of a large variety of rare earths was found here in the United States a year or two ago. Prices are already at the point that it is very likely this will be put to use. But it's a large enough quantity to call into question the long-held idea that China "has 30%" of the rare earths.
A war on coal was when the coal operators murdered miners for trying to organize a union. They put a Gatling gun on a flatbed train car and rolled through a tent camp of miners, spraying bullets. The US military was finally called out to put the miners in their place when they decided to fight back. That was a war. What you're talking about is chicken shit political mudslinging.
You really consider it a war when the federal government finally makes the corporations that profit from coal bear some percentage of the cost it takes on the rest of us? A hundred years of dead miners, polluted waters, destroyed landscapes, polluted air, lung diseases, cancers, etc, but expecting coal operators to spend money on safety or power plants on technology to remove some of the pollutants and we have a war? My dad is currently laid off from an underground coal mine due to the downturn in the coal industry, just like he was laid off plenty of times 30 years ago during downturns in the coal industry. The current downturn in the coal industry is driven by last year's extremely warm winter and all-time low natural gas prices. Coal mining employment was higher under Obama than Bush until earlier this year.
War on Coal? What a load of shit.