China, Japan, South Korea, ASEAN Agree on Wider Currency Swap Arrangements
ISTANBUL, May 4 (AFP) - Finance ministers from China, Japan, South Korea and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) agreed Wednesday to expand their system of bilateral currency swaps under the Chiang Mai Initiative to a more multilateral system. The ministers, meeting as the “ASEAN-plus-3″ on the sidelines of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) annual meeting in Istanbul, said this would make the Chiang Mai Initiative a “more effective and disciplined framework.” Under the currency swaps, an Asian country hit by a foreign exchange crisis like the one in 1997 could borrow borrow foreign currency — usually US dollars — from another country to bolster its reserves until the crisis had passed. An ADB analyst remarked that Wednesday’s accord was a step towards setting up an “Asian Monetary Fund,” although such an institution might never actually be created.
In a joint press conference, the 1O ASEAN and three East Asian financial ministers also called for a review of the quota of Asian countries in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) “to properly reflect the current realities and their relative positions in the world economy.” The 13 ministers said an economic surveillance system would be put into place along with the Chiang Mai Initiative framework, to detect irregularities early and apply swift remedies. They also said a collective decision-making mechanism would oversee the current system of bilateral swap arrangements “as a first step towards multilateralization.”
This would make it easier to activate the bilateral swap arrangements in case of an emergency, the ministers said in a joint statement read after their three-hour meeting. Crisis-hit countries would also be able to draw down as much as 20 percent of the money under the bilateral swap arrangements without having to go through the IMF. Under the current arrangements, countries that draw more than 10 percent under their swap arrangements must have an IMF-supported program in place. The decisions of the ASEAN-plus-3 group apparently followed recommendations made during a meeting of the Chinese, Japanese and South Korean ministers a day earlier. Previously, the initiative launched in Chiang Mai, Thailand, in May 2000 involved only bilateral swaps but the Chinese, Japanese and South Korean ministers said they would look towards expanding this into multilateral swaps involving three or four countries. Asian countries had earlier proposed the creation of an Asian Monetary Fund after the 1997 fiscal crisis but the United States and the IMF had strongly opposed this. Chinese minister Renqing Jin said his country had already agreed to “double the scale of its currency swap,” from its current level.
However, when asked if they were setting up an Asian Monetary Fund, Japanese minister Sadakazu Tanigaki replied, “only the Chiang Mai Initiative was discussed”. The ministers said the initiative had been very helpful in maintaining the financial stability of Asian countries even if there had been no repeat of the 1997 crisis. Masahiro Kawai, special adviser to the ADB president, who monitored the ASEAN-plus-3 meeting, said the ministers wanted to increase the effectiveness of the Chiang Mai Initiative which now covers 16 bilateral swap arrangements. He called it a “step towards multilateralization,” adding that a “de facto Asian Monetary Fund,” may eventually be created. He said the United States and the IMF had opposed such a fund in the past partly due to fears it would increase the risk of moral hazard. But Kawai said this was why the ministers wanted to increase the surveillance function of the Chiang Mai Initiative. He remarked that in the past, China had not joined the move to create an Asian Monetary Fund and that if it joined with the other Asian countries, they might be more successful. mm/wai
Source: http://www.asean.org/afp/113.htm
Global Tungsten Shortage Looming
Tungsten is an essential component in many industrial applications including drilling & cutting tools, electronics and specialist steels. The European Union categorises tungsten as a “critical raw material”. China currently produces 85% of the world’s tungsten but their factories are ravenous consumers and China is a net importer. USA, Europe and Japan consume 55% of world tungsten, but produce only ~5%. It should be no surprise that tungsten prices have surged in the last year, while many other commodities have experienced price decline. Image Link: http://www.metalinvestmentnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/PLY1-Dec.jpg Tungsten is currently selling for $20 a pound. New growth markets include nickel-tungsten alloys which can substitute for gold-nickel plating.
Playfair’s tungsten properties contain an estimated 100 million pounds of 43-101 compliant tungsten, and significant additional historical resources. These resources have potential for expansion.
Tungsten is a low profile commodity. There is no tungsten ETF, and few pure plays. Outside of China only two publicly traded companies currently produce tungsten: Malaga (MLG-TSX) and North American Tungsten (NTC-TSX). With four high-grade Tungsten deposits, Playfair Mining (PLY-TSX) is highly leveraged to rising prices and looming tungsten shortages. Image Link: http://www.metalinvestmentnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/PLY2-Dec.jpg
“We feel very fortunate to have 4 high grade tungsten deposits at a time when the price of tungsten has started to move sharply higher,” states Don Moore, Playfair CEO, “We acquired these projects when tungsten prices were depressed. China has an ironclad grip on the market. It’s not surprising that we are starting to see some serious interest from large tungsten end-users who need to get stable supply from outside of China.” Image Link: http://www.metalinvestmentnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/PLY3-Dec.jpg Tungsten is an essential industrial product but typically insignificant on a cost basis. Like the salt in a bag of potato chips - the price of salt could triple and the bag of chips would only increase a penny. But you can’t sell chips without salt. So with China slurping up most of the global supply - tungsten could see dramatic price increases with little demand destruction. Playfair’s veteran team of Donald G. Moore, Neil Briggs is augmented by Director James Robertson who was a principal in Primary Metals, a tungsten producer taken out by Japanese giant, Sojitz Inc.Judging from public statements by Playfair’s management, the strategy may well be to partner with a tungsten end user to help finance the project into production.
Image Link: http://www.metalinvestmentnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/PLY4-Dec.jpg
In addition to the compliant resources at Grey River (16.2m lbs) and Risby (89.4m lbs), Playfair has historical resources of 18.5m lbs at Lened and 5.3m lbs at Clea. Four high grade Canadian deposits: Grey River representing near term production potential, Risby offering massive size potential and all offering room for exploration upside.
Grey River, located on the south coast of Newfoundland, consists of nine mineral claims covering 1,750 hectares. The Grey River tungsten veins are typical fluorite-rich wolframite-quartz greisen vein deposits. A 1984 GSC Economic Geology Report lists the Grey River deposits as “one of the largest typical wolframite deposits in Canada” and states “It would be remarkable if there were not many more tungsten occurrences’ [on the property].” The Grey River deposit sits at tidewater in an ice free, deep water Atlantic port that offers year round shipping.
Risby is an advanced stage deposit in the Yukon accessible by a 25 km tractor road from an all-weather highway. The property is located approximately 55 kilometres west of Ross River and is comprised of 38 quartz mineral claims, all 100% owned by Playfair Mining.
The property was worked on from 1968 to 1982 by the Caltor Syndicate and Hudson Bay Exploration and Development Co. Ltd. Together their exploration efforts include 48 diamond drill holes (7,057 metres), geological mapping, trenching, stream sediment sampling and ground geophysics (magnetometer and EM surveys). Recent work by Playfair includes diamond drilling, resource expansion and a NI 43-101 compliant inferred resource calculation of 8,537,000 tonnes of 0.475% WO3 at a 0.2% cut-off.
Despite surging tungsten prices, Playfair has been hit hard by tax loss selling is currently trading close to all-time lows at $.07. It has a market cap of $5.4 million. The British Geological Survey (BGS) has tungsten #4 on its “Risk List” stating that it is critically vulnerable to supply disruption. With 122 million fully diluted shares and 100 million pounds of 43-101 compliant tungsten on the books - worth about $2 billion at current prices - Playfair is definitely worth a closer look.
Source: Metal Investment News
China’s Rare-Earth Domination Keeps Wind Industry On Its Toes
Wind turbine manufacturers are scrambling to find alternatives to a key element used in direct-drive permanent magnet generators (PMGs), thanks to skyrocketing prices and diminishing supplies of crucial rare earths.
China currently provides 94% of the world’s rare earths, including neodymium and dysprosium, which are used in the magnets for direct-drive wind turbine motors. However, the Chinese government has put new restrictions on rare-earth mining that have resulted in lower supply levels, according to a report from research firm Roskill Information Services (RIS).
For instance, this year, the Chinese government issued new regulations requiring all companies that mine rare earths to show they have mandatory production plans, appropriate planning permission, environmental certification and safety licenses.
But it was last year’s tightening of China’s export quota that really impacted the rare-earth market. Between May 2010 and August 2011, Chinese internal prices for neodymium increased eightfold - a reflection of the shortage of rare earths for magnets within China, RIS notes.
China has also ramped up its export taxes on rare earths, causing a shortage in the rest of the world.
As a result, only 25% of the world’s rare-earth supply will come from China by 2015, as demand for the neodymium and dysprosium necessary for the manufacture of magnets for wind turbines will climb at a pace of 7% to 9% per year through 2015, according to RIS’ research.
This growth in demand could result in a supply deficit within that time frame, causing wind turbine manufacturers to rush to find alternatives to PMGs.
Searching for other options
Some companies that rely on PMGs for their wind turbines have already taken steps to avoid the problem.
In September, PMG manufacturer Boulder Wind Power engaged Molycorp - which claims to be the only U.S. supplier of rare earths, and the largest provider outside of China - to be its preferred supplier of rare earths and/or alloys for wind turbine generators.
In addition to avoiding the trade conflicts and price volatility associated with China by using a U.S.-based supplier, the company also uses permanent magnets that do not require dysprosium, a very scarce rare earth.
“By effectively solving the dysprosium supply problem for the wind turbine industry, this technology removes a major hurdle to the expansion of permanent magnet generator wind turbines across global markets,” says Mark A. Smith, Molycorp’s president and CEO.
Direct-drive wind turbine manufacturer Goldwind has taken a similar approach.
“As a result of early price increases, Goldwind began developing efficiencies and alternatives that reduce the amount of rare-earth materials required to manufacture our magnets, which, in turn, mitigates our exposure to future price fluctuations,” Colin Mahoney, spokesperson for Goldwind USA, tells NAW. “This is a scenario that we have long considered.”
Despite RIS’ somewhat negative forecast, some say the worst is over. Because companies are looking to U.S. rare-earth suppliers, such as Molycorp, instead of to China - as well as coming up with alternatives that do not involve rare earths - there is some indication that prices may come down.
In fact, a recent New York Times article claims prices have dropped significantly since August.
Goldwind’s Mahoney agrees with that assessment.
“While the price of rare-earth materials have fluctuated over the past several years, more recent trends have included a dramatic drop in the neodymium market,” he says.
Still, it is uncertain how long these prices can be maintained, as demand for rare earths is expected to soar by 2015, the RIS report notes.
By: Laura DiMugno
Source: http://www.nawindpower.com/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.8925
Are Molybdenum Prices On Their Way Down And Out?
China, as the world’s largest steel producer, is the world’s largest consumer of molybdenum. China is also the world’s largest moly-producing country (although North America is the largest producing region). According to the International Molybdenum Association, use of molybdenum in transportation, power generation, building and construction will likely increase by 6 percent each year through 2019. This view was shared by Roskill last year, who saw under-investment in molybdenum projects in 2009 and 2010 having consequences for supply as far ahead as 2015. So if demand is strong and supply is constrained, why have prices fallen this year, and could the predicted long-term price / demand trend be at risk?
Iron ore demand and steel production in the world’s largest steel market, China, have remained strong this year, yet molybdenum imports have not kept pace. As an article in the Tex Report states, the Chinese Iron and Steel Association (CISA) released data showing that steel production in September was up 3.1 percent from August.
The total annualized run rate of production is over 700 million tons, compared year-over-year with 2010, when China produced just over 550 million tons. The global steel production growth rate stands at 9.8 percent, although recent numbers suggest a distinct softening everywhere except Asia. China, however, has been pushing 13.8 percent this year. The continued strength of steel production in China would suggest that molybdenum, an essential in high-strength steel production, would also be equally well supported. But as the table below shows, China has swung to becoming a net exporter of moly oxide.
Although June and July saw imports exceed exports as domestic mines in China are brought on-stream, it is expected that China will increasingly seek to rely on domestic molybdenum concentrate supply rather than imports, resulting in ongoing pressure on prices. Molybdenum has fallen to below $14/lb, and unless Chinese merchants decide to step back into the market to opportunistically import, global demand is likely to remain bereft of Chinese buying.
While domestic prices have followed the global trend in broad terms, this graph of ferro-moly prices in China taken from the MetalMiner IndX shows they have not been as volatile:
With slowing demand in China inevitably feeding through into slowing steel growth, the chances of China resuming imports on a consistent basis looks unlikely. Good news for moly consumers in the West, who were harboring concerns earlier that supply constraints would prompt a return to higher prices next year.
by Stuart Burns
China’s Rare Earths Monopoly - Peril or Opportunity?
September 30, 2011 (Source: Market Oracle) — The prosperity of China’s “authoritarian capitalism” is increasingly rewriting the ground-rules worldwide on the capitalist principles that have dominated the West’s economy for nearly two centuries.
Nowhere is this shadow war more between the two systems more pronounced than in the global arena of production of rare earths elements (REEs), where China currently holds a de facto monopoly, raising concerns from Washington through London to Tokyo about what China might do with its hand across the throat of high-end western technology.
In the capitalist West, as so convincingly dissected by Karl Marx, such a commanding position is a supreme and unique opportunity to squeeze the markets to maximize profits.
Except China apparently has a different agenda, poking yet another hole in Marx’s ironclad dictums about capitalism and monopolies, further refined by Lenin’s screeds after his Bolsheviks inadvertently acceded to power in 1917 in the debacle of Russia’s disastrous involvement in World War One. Far from squeezing its degenerate capitalist customers for maximum profit (and it’s relevant here to call Lenin’s dictum that if you want to hang a capitalist, he’ll sell you the rope to do it), Beijing has apparently adopted a “soft landing” approach on rare earths production, gradually constricting supplies whilst inveigling Western (and particularly Japanese) high tech companies to relocate production lines to China to ensure continued access to the essential commodities.
REEs are found in everyday products, from laptops to iPods to flat screen televisions and hybrid cars, which use more than 20 pounds of REEs per car. Other RRE uses include phosphors in television displays, PDAs, lasers, green engine technology, fiber optics, magnets, catalytic converters, fluorescent lamps, rechargeable batteries, magnetic refrigeration, wind turbines, and, of most interest to the Pentagon, strategic military weaponry, including cruise missiles.
Technology transfer is the essential overlooked component in China’s economic rise, and Beijing played Western greed on the subject like a Stradivarius, promising future access to China’s massive market in return, an opium dream that rarely occurred for most companies. You want unimpeded access to Chinese RREs? Fine – relocate a portion on your production lines here, or…
Which brings us back to today’s topic.
Rare earths and investment – where to go?
China is riding a profitable wave, which depending on what figures you read, produces 95-97 percent of current global supply, and unprocessed raw earth earths ores are currently going for more than $100,000 a ton, or $50 a pound, which some of the exotica fetching far more (niobium prices has increase an astounding 1,000 percent over the last year). Rare earth elements like dysprosium, terbium and europium come mainly from southern China.
According to a United States Energy Department report, dysprosium, crucial for clean energy products rose to $132 a pound in 2010 from $6.50 a pound in 2003.
The soaring prices however have also invigorated many countries and producers to begin looking in their own back yards, for both new deposits and former mining sites that were shuttered when production cost made them uneconomic before prices went through the ceiling.
However, a number of unknown factors play into developing alternative sources to current Chinese RRE production. These include first prospecting possible sites, secondly, their purity and third, initial production costs, where modest Chinese labor costs are a clear factor.
The 17 RRE elements on the Periodic Table are actually not rare, with the two least abundant of the group 200 times more abundant than gold. They are, however, hard to find in large enough concentrations to support costs of extraction, and are frequently found in conjunction with radioactive thorium, leading to significant waste problems.
At hearings last week before U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, Molycorp, Inc. President and Chief Executive Officer Mark A. Smith stated that his company was positioned to fulfill American rare earth needs, currently estimated at 15,000-18,000 tons per year, by the end of 2012 if it can ramp up production at its Mountain Pass, California facility.
Which brings us back to foreign producers. A year ago Molycorp announced that it was reopening its former RRE mine in Mountain Pass, Calif., which years ago used to be the world’s main mine for rare earth elements, filing with the SEC for an initial public offering to help raise the nearly $500 million needed to reopen and expand the mine. Low prices caused by Chinese competition caused the Mountain Pass mine to be shuttered in 2002.
Mountain Pass was discovered in 1949 by uranium prospectors who noticed radioactivity and its output dominated rare earth element production through the 1980s; Mountain Pass Europium made the world’s first color televisions possible.
Molycorp plans to increase its capacity to mine and refine neodymium for rare earth magnets, which are extremely lightweight and are used in many high-tech applications and intends to resume production of lower-value rare earth elements like cerium, used in industrial processes like polishing glass and water filtration.
In one of those historic economic ironies, China was able to increase its RRE production in the 1980s by initially hiring American advisers who formerly worked at Mountain Pass.
The record-high REE prices are also underwriting exploration activities worldwide by more than six dozen other companies in the United States, Canada, South Africa, Malaysia and Central Asia to open new RRE mines, but with each start-up typically raising $10 million to $30 million, not all will succeed. That said, the future is bright, as almost two-thirds of the world’s supply of REEs exists outside of China and accordingly, China’s current monopoly of REE production will not last.
So where do investors look to cash in on the RRE boom?
First, do your homework.
Exhibit A is Moylcorp, which would seem to be in unassailable position as regards U.S. production, but which nevertheless on 20 September after JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered its rating of the company, citing declines in rare-earth prices, causing its stock to plummet 22 percent in New York Stock Exchange composite trading, despite being the best-performing U.S. IPO in 2010 after beginning trading in July, more than tripling after rare-earth prices soared as China cut export quotas.
Is there money to be made in RREs?
Undoubtedly – but the homework for the canny investor needs to extend beyond spreadsheets to geopolitics, mining lore, chemistry and Wall Street puffery. That said, it seems likely that whatever U.S.-based company can cover the Pentagon’s RRE requirements is likely to see more than a minor boost in its bottom line.
Gentlemen, place your bets – but do your homework first.
China Consolidates Grip on Rare Earths
BEIJING In the name of fighting pollution, China has sent the price of compact fluorescent light bulbs soaring in the United States.
The price of compact fluorescent light bulbs has risen drastically in the last year because of the rising cost of rare earth metals.
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By closing or nationalizing dozens of the producers of rare earth metals â which are used in energy-efficient bulbs and many other green-energy products â China is temporarily shutting down most of the industry and crimping the global supply of the vital resources.
China produces nearly 95 percent of the world’s rare earth materials, and it is taking the steps to improve pollution controls in a notoriously toxic mining and processing industry. But the moves also have potential international trade implications and have started yet another round of price increases for rare earths, which are vital for green-energy products including giant wind turbines, hybrid gasoline-electric cars and compact fluorescent bulbs.
General Electric, facing complaints in the United States about rising prices for its compact fluorescent bulbs, recently noted in a statement that if the rate of inflation over the last 12 months on the rare earth element europium oxide had been applied to a $2 cup of coffee, that coffee would now cost $24.55.
A pack of three 11-watt G.E. compact fluorescent bulbs each the lighting equivalent of a 40-watt incandescent bulb was priced on Thursday at $15.88 on Wal-Mart’s Web site for pickup in a Nashville, Ark., store. The average price for fluorescent bulbs has risen 37 percent this year, according to the National Electrical Manufacturers Association.
Wal-Mart, which has made a big push for compact fluorescent bulbs, acknowledged that it needed to raise prices on some brands lately. Obviously we don’t want to pass along price increases to our customers, but occasionally market conditions require it, Tara Raddohl, a spokeswoman, said. The Chinese actions on rare earths were a prime topic of conversation at a conference here on Thursday that was organized by Metal-Pages, an industry data firm based in London.
Soaring prices are rippling through a long list of industries.
The high cost of rare earths is having a significant chilling effect on wind turbine and electric motor production in spite of offsetting government subsidies for green tech products, said one of the conference attendees, Michael N. Silver, chairman and chief executive of American Elements, a chemical company based in Los Angeles. It supplies rare earths and other high-tech materials to businesses.
But with light bulbs, especially, the timing of the latest price increases is politically awkward for the lighting industry and for environmentalists who backed a shift to energy-efficient lighting.
In January, legislation that President George W. Bush signed into law in 2007 will begin phasing out traditional incandescent bulbs in favor of spiral compact fluorescent bulbs and other technologies. The European Union has also mandated a switch from incandescent bulbs to energy-efficient lighting.
Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota is running for the Republican presidential nomination on a platform that includes strong opposition to the new lighting rules in the United States and has been a leader of efforts by House Republicans to repeal it.
China says it has largely shut down its rare earth industry for three months to address pollution problems. By invoking environmental concerns, China could potentially try to circumvent international trade rules that are supposed to prohibit export restrictions of vital materials.
In July, the European Union said in a statement on rare earth policy that the organization supported efforts to protect the environment, but that discrimination against foreign buyers of rare earths was not allowed under World Trade Organization rules.
China has been imposing tariffs and quotas on its rare earth exports for several years, curtailing global supplies and forcing prices to rise eightfold to fortyfold during that period for the various 17 rare earth elements.
Even before this latest move by China, the United States and the European Union were preparing to file a case at the W.T.O. this winter that would challenge Chinese export taxes and export quotas on rare earths.
Chinese officials here at the conference said the government was worried about polluted water, polluted air and radioactive residues from the rare earth industry, particularly among many small and private companies, some of which operate without the proper licenses. While rare earths themselves are not radioactive, they are always found in ore containing radioactive thorium and require careful handling and processing to avoid contaminating the environment.
Most of the country’s rare earth factories have been closed since early August, including those under government control, to allow for installation of pollution control equipment that must be in place by Oct. 1, executives and regulators said.
The government is determined to clean up the industry, said Xu Xu, chairman of the China Chamber of Commerce of Metals, Minerals and Chemicals Importers and Exporters, a government-controlled group that oversees the rare earth industry. The entrepreneurs don’t care about environmental problems, don’t care about labor problems and don’t care about their social responsibility, he said. And now we have to educate them.
Beijing authorities are creating a single government-controlled monopoly, Bao Gang Rare Earth, to mine and process ore in northern China, the region that accounts for two-thirds of China’s output. The government is ordering 31 mostly private rare earth processing companies to close this year in that region and is forcing four other companies into mergers with Bao Gang, said Li Zhong, the vice general manager of Bao Gang Rare Earth.
The government also plans to consolidate 80 percent of the production from southern China, which produces the rest of China’s rare earths, into three companies within the next year or two, Mr. Li said. All three of these companies are former ministries of the Chinese government that were spun out as corporations, and the central government still owns most of the shares.
The taxes and quotas China had in place to restrict rare earth exports caused many companies to move their factories to China from the United States and Europe so that they could secure a reliable and inexpensive source of raw materials.
China promised when it joined the W.T.O. in 2001 that it would not restrict exports except for a handful of obscure materials. Rare earths were not among the exceptions.
But even if the W.T.O. orders China to dismantle its export tariffs and quotas, the industry consolidation now under way could enable China to retain tight control over exports and continue to put pressure on foreign companies to relocate to China.
The four state-owned companies might limit sales to foreign buyers, a tactic that would be hard to address through the W.T.O., Western trade officials said.
Hedge funds and other speculators have been buying and hoarding rare earths this year, with prices rising particularly quickly through early August, and dipping since then as some have sold their inventories to take profits, said Constantine Karayannopoulos, the chief executive of Neo Material Technologies, a Canadian company that is one of the largest processors in China of raw rare earths.
“The real hot money got into the industry building neodymium and europium inventories in Shanghai warehouses,” he said.
Correction: September 17, 2011
An article on Friday about the effect of China’s control over rare earth metals on energy-efficient products like light bulbs misstated the price of 11-watt G.E. compact fluorescent bulbs listed on Wal-Mart’s Web site. The price of $15.88 is for a three-pack, not a single bulb.
www.nytimes.com
Sephanie Clifford
09/15/2011