Posted on 05/27/2019 4:47:29 PM PDT by Zhang Fei
MP Materials, which runs the sole operating rare earths mine in the United States, is an unusual victim in the year-long tit-for-tat trade war between the two largest economies on the planet, as the conflict looks set to open up a new battlefront over technology.
The operator of the Mountain Pass mine in California said it will kick-start its own processing operation by the end of 2020, after China last week more than doubled an import duty on concentrates to 25 per cent effective June 1. MP exports pellets – ground-up ores that contain oxides of rare earth elements – to China for processing into neodymium, cerium and other elements used in magnets, electric vehicles, smartphones and a myriad of industrial applications and electronic products.
“A 25 per cent tariff is likely to make domestic sources of rare earth ores in China more competitive, although importing ore still circumvents the mining quota and associated environmental legislation,” said David Merriman, a London-based analyst at Roskill Information Services.
MP’s strategy underscores the lopsidedness in one aspect of the complicated US-China commercial relationship, where America had run a trade deficit with China since at least 1985 when US census data began. Mountain Pass lost its two-decade dominance of the world’s rare earths supply in the mid-1980s when China began to exploit, extract and process the nation’s vast reserves, ending up with a stranglehold of about 90 per cent of global supply today.
US President Donald Trump, who ordered his administration to more than double US duties on US$200 billion worth of Chinese products to 25 per cent, had wanted to slap a 10 per cent tariff on Chinese rare earths in July, but dropped it from a long list last September.
(Excerpt) Read more at scmp.com ...
[WOW ! Mountain Pass in the news ! I lived there as a child in the ‘60s and attended the 2 room school house. And met Elvis Presley at our little post office/grocery store. He was riding a motorcycle with another rider on their way to Las Vegas. He stopped at the little store for soda and snack. My Mom talked with him while I just gwacked. He was very nice. The most favorite place I ever lived.]
Pretty sure Mountain Pass mining operation is Chinese owned and does ship the raw product to China to be processed.
Here is a REE mine that is attempting to start up.
[Pretty sure Mountain Pass mining operation is Chinese owned and does ship the raw product to China to be processed.]
The biggest source is in the batteries of imported cars.
Secondary, or recycled lead, is readily available for all required uses in the US.
1. The Mountain Pass mine currently has a minority Chinese ownership.
2. The real environmental problems come from the fact that the ore contains Radium and Thorium and is radioactive. These elements are separated into the tailings and must be disposed properly. There have been spills in the past.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I have a lot of difficulty getting too excited about these spills. What is really happening is that they are taking slightly radioactive material from one Godforsaken part of the desert and moving it to another Godforsaken, but approved, part of the desert. And it sometimes gets spilled in yet a third Godforsaken, but unapproved, part of the desert.
OTOH, if your name is Obama, or if you are an environmentalist, you can hurt the United States by penalizing the people who want to make the US more competitive.
If we were to tar and feather the entire bunch and ride them out of the US on a rail we would be better off.
Interesting find - headline...
“Japan just found a ‘semi-infinite’ deposit of rare-earth minerals — and it could be a ‘game-changer’ in competition with China
Jeremy Berke Apr. 13, 2018, 12:26 PM”
Story highlights...
“Japan started seeking its own rare-earth mineral deposits after China withheld shipments of the substances amid a dispute over islands that both countries claim as their own, Reuters reported in 2014. ...
A new finding that could change the global economy...
The newly discovered deposit is enough to “supply these metals on a semi-infinite basis to the world,” the study’s authors wrote in the study. ...
The cache lies off of Minamitori Island, about 1,150 miles southeast of Tokyo. It’s within Japan’s exclusive economic zone, so the island nation has the sole rights to the resources there. ...”
“Business Insider” article link...
< https://www.businessinsider.com/rare-earth-minerals-found-in-japan-2018-4 >
Gleason struck down a land trade intended to clear the way for a road to be built though sensitive wetlands in Alaska’s Izembek National Wildlife Refuge.
The electric motor in a Toyota Prius uses about 1 kilogram of neodymium in its permanent magnets. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) says a wind turbine rated at 3.5 megawatts of electricity contains 600 kilograms, or 1,300 pounds, of rare-earth metals. - https://www.recyclingtoday.com/article/rare-earth-metals-recycling/
May be it will be worth it to scrap dealers soon to pick up old TVs and monitors.
“According to the article, it’s 10% Chinese-owned.”
Reread the article and did not find this information.
Buried somewhere in the comments?
Interesting preachy lecture by:
Dr Mamdouh G Salameh
International Oil Economist
Visiting Professor of Energy Economics at ESCP Europe Business School, London
“President Trump and his advisers are well advised to study and also heed the mantras of Deng Xiaoping, the inspirational architect of contemporary China and is thus among the towering figures of the twentieth century. His mantras about the peaceful rise of China are:
“China should “observe developments soberly, maintain our position, meet challenges calmly, hide our capabilities and bide our time, remain free of ambition, never claim leadership. China should not attempt to be a hegemon, it should never practice power politics and it should never pose a threat to its neighbours or to world peace”.”
Been a while since “Deng....the inspirational architect,” ruled China. I agree about the “hide our capabilities,” but none of the rest still apply—if they ever did—to the current China. (Which this international oil analyst should well know considering just the imperialistic actions of the Chinese to seize pretty much the entire South Chinese Sea and its oil resources from Manila and Hanoi. (Never pose a threat my ass!)
[Reread the article and did not find this information.
Buried somewhere in the comments?]
When Deng said “bide your time, he meant the way someone in a deer hide waits for his moment. I’m a dilettante re China in much the same way I was re Russia back when I was an amateur Russia watcher until the Warsaw Pact dissolved. Being neither Russian nor Chinese, I have no native grasp of either language, and am restricted to English language sources. However, both countries are essentially the same as they’ve ever been since the first tribal chieftain expanded at the expense of his neighbor. In Russia’s case, it’s since Dmitri Donskoi broke free of Mongol vassalage ~7 centuries ago. In China’s case, it was when Ying Zheng first laid claim to “all under heaven” 2200 years ago.
Deng wasn’t just a member of the Chinese nomenklatura, and he was clearly no jumped-up apparatchiki. He was one of the key generals at a critical battle fought during the Chinese civil war that brought the Communists to power. His life was essentially spent biding his time and hiding his ambition, like Xi Jinping, Hu Jintao, Jiang Zemin and the other schemers who clawed their way to the top. Deng was more grizzly than panda bear - he ordered the Tiananmen massacre and knocked Mao’s handpicked successor off his perch to become China’s third communist leader, an emperor in all but name.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huaihai_Campaign
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hua_Guofeng
Anwar (Sadat) was assassinated by islamicists in 1981.
Perhaps you’re thinking of oil prospects in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR)?
< /pedantry>
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M P Neo is Controlled by China... Not U.S. sheesh ... here’s the Real story ... Here’s the Real Deal .... REEMF Recently partnered with Synchron general atomics the only American owned domestic rare earth supply was $15 in 2011 might be a big deal. https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/international/americas/1576085150-us-military-to-sponsor-rare-metals-plant-to-offset-dependence-on-china-report PHUN 1.34 52wk high of $100+ insiders buying .. contracted to run TRUMP presidential campaign .. .. viva L.V. !
REEMF Recently partnered with Synchron general atomics the only American owned domestic rare earth supply was $15 in 2011 might be a big deal. https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/international/americas/1576085150-us-military-to-sponsor-rare-metals-plant-to-offset-dependence-on-china-report PHUN 1.34 52wk high of $100+ insiders buying .. contracted to run TRUMP presidential campaign .. .. viva L.V. !
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