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10 sats \ 1 reply \ @Solomonsatoshi OP 19h
Thanks to @NovaRift here is the link to the full article-
https://archive.ph/Q9QLf
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7 sats \ 0 replies \ @NovaRift 19h
Glad that I could help you! Thanks
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @mrtali 16h
Fact that will help you understand what's happening...
Countries with the largest rare earth reserves in thousands of metric tons:
China: 44,000
Vietnam: 22,000
Brazil: 21,000
Russia: 10,000
India: 6,900
Australia: 4,100
United States: 2,300
Myanmar: 1,700
Madagascar: 1,500
Tanzania: 890
Canada: 830
Ukraine: 500
Thailand: 230
Greenland: 150
Malawi: 140
South Africa: 130
Kyrgyzstan: 110
Namibia: 100
Spain: 90
Egypt: 50
North Korea: 20
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi OP 12h
China has developed its rare earth resources and those of other nations while the west has slept.
If you read the article linked you would understand this.
'“It’s just the way China does things. They have tended to build more capacity whether it’s in aluminum, or cement, or nickel,” said William Adams, head of base metals research for Fastmarkets. Chinese companies “all gun for market share, and the consequence for that is you get oversupply.”
Western officials, too, are sounding the alarm. In response to a question last month about China’s dominance in nickel, Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said the market had been flooded, making businesses in free-market democracies uneconomic. '
Its not that the Chinese innately have hugely more rare earth reserves than others but rather that they have deliberately and strategically developed their capacity while the west slumbered on its delusional US exceptionalism.
China has played the west at its own game of capitalism and imperialism- and won.
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Solomonsatoshi OP 20h
Does anyone know how to get the archives page link for this article and other WSJ articles?
@denlillaapan ?
Anyway here is some of it-
'SINGAPORE—For the past few years, the West has been trying to break China’s grip on minerals that are critical for defense and green technologies. Despite their efforts, Chinese companies are becoming more dominant, not less.
They are expanding operations, supercharging supply and causing prices to drop. Their challengers can’t compete.
“China is not just standing still waiting for us to catch up,” said Morgan Bazilian, director of the Payne Institute at the Colorado School of Mines. “They are making investments on top of their already massive investments in all aspects of the critical-minerals supply chain.”
Take nickel, which is needed for electric-vehicle batteries. Chinese processing plants that dot the Indonesian archipelago are pumping out vast quantities of the mineral from new and expanding facilities, jolting the market.
CobaltNickel
Lithium2015'16'17'18'19'20'21'22'23'24020406080100%
Meanwhile, Switzerland-based mining giant Glencore is suspending operations at its nickel plant in New Caledonia, a French territory, concluding it can’t survive despite offers of financial help from Paris. The U.K.’s Horizonte Minerals, whose new Brazilian mine was expected to become a major Western source, said last month that investors had bailed, citing oversupply in the market.
At least four nickel mines in Western Australia are winding down.
Lithium projects in the U.S. and Australia have been postponed or suspended after a surge in Chinese production at home and in sub-Saharan Africa.
The only dedicated cobalt mine in the U.S. also suspended operations last year, five months after local dignitaries attended its opening ceremony. Its owners say they are struggling against a flood of Chinese-produced cobalt from Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Last year, non-Chinese production of refined cobalt declined to its lowest level in 15 years, according to Darton Commodities. The share of lithium mining done within China or by Chinese companies abroad has grown from 14% in 2018 to 35% this year, according to Fastmarkets, a commodities information provider. Over the same time, lithium processing done within China has risen from 63% in 2018 to 70%, according to Fastmarkets.
The breakneck expansion has assailed Western producers, who say China’s domestic economy can’t always absorb the flood of minerals its firms bring to market. Slower-than-expected electric-car sales growth in China last year meant there were fewer takers for China’s mineral surge, contributing to the crash in global prices.
CobaltNickel
Lithium2020'21'22'23'240102030$40 per lb.
What’s more worrying for Western producers is that there is little sign of a letup.
“It’s just the way China does things. They have tended to build more capacity whether it’s in aluminum, or cement, or nickel,” said William Adams, head of base metals research for Fastmarkets. Chinese companies “all gun for market share, and the consequence for that is you get oversupply.”
Western officials, too, are sounding the alarm. In response to a question last month about China’s dominance in nickel, Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said the market had been flooded, making businesses in free-market democracies uneconomic.
“It is our belief that that behavior can be intentional, can be happening with the purpose of driving companies in our country, in those of our allies, out of business,” she said. Freeland didn’t provide further details or any evidence for the claim.
China’s Foreign Ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment.
‘The big bad wolf’
Chinese companies are continuing to ramp up, thanks to years of aggressive acquisitions. Zijin Mining, a Chinese state-backed company, said it would increase lithium production by around 85 times this year from a low base, and by a further five times next year.
The projected growth stems from its 2022 purchase of a Western asset—a premium untapped mine in Argentina—that is scheduled to begin pumping out lithium this year.
The mine was discovered in 2015 when Waldo Perez, an Argentinian-born geologist, took samples at a remote lake 13,000 feet above sea level in the Andes, which turned out to be part of a massive lithium deposit. He formed a Canadian company called Neo Lithium with partners, secured the mineral rights, listed it on the Toronto Stock Exchange and stepped up exploration.
By 2021, they decided to sell.
There has been a surge in Chinese production of lithium, a key battery ingredient.
There has been a surge in Chinese production of lithium, a key battery ingredient. Photo: Cfoto/DDP/Zuma Press
Constantine Karayannopoulos, Neo Lithium’s chairman at the time, said he courted potential suitors—miners and makers of EV batteries alike—from Japan, Germany, the U.S., South Korea and Australia, but there was little interest. With lithium prices rising at the time, he said they were wary of joining the “feeding frenzy” and shelling out a lot of money for the mine in case it turned out to be a bust.
The three best offers the company received were from Chinese companies, including the winning $750 million bid from Zijin, whose largest shareholder is a Chinese state-owned firm.
The sale passed a Canadian government review but perturbed conservative lawmakers in the country and in the U.S.
Karayannopoulos said he was protecting shareholder interests and there was little to be done about “some very far removed non-stakeholders complaining that we shouldn’t be selling this to the big bad wolf.”
“The Chinese were true believers but the Westerners were not,” said Perez, the geologist who discovered the deposit and was Neo Lithium’s chief executive at the time of the sale.
‘Single-member OPEC’
China has many advantages in the race to lock up minerals. Its miners are deep-pocketed and aggressive, making bets in resource-rich countries that Western companies have long viewed as corrupt or unstable, such as Indonesia, Mali, Bolivia and Zimbabwe. State banks provide financing for power plants and industrial parks abroad, paving the way for further private Chinese investment.
China’s rapid industrial development also means its companies have spent decades fine-tuning the art of turning raw ore into metals. They can set up new facilities quickly and cheaply. A paper published in February by the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies pegs the costs of building a lithium refinery outside China as three to four times higher than building one within the country.'
WSJ
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300 sats \ 0 replies \ @NovaRift 20h
Try : https://archive.today
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