The Chinese Yuan, Rare Earths And The Selection Of Critical Mining Projects — Technology Metals Research

The Chinese Yuan, Rare Earths And The Selection Of Critical Mining Projects — Technology Metals Research

If you’re reasonably well informed about global trade issues, then you know that the USA and China disagree politically on the relative value, of the Chinese renminbi in US dollars, and that the renminbi’s exchange rate with the US dollar is set by the Chinese government. This is because the world market has chosen not to make the renminbi freely convertible (exchangeable for other currencies at a rate set by a free market, not by the issuing country). This is itself because the Chinese government exclusively sets the exchange rate, and its power to do so is based on the immense size of its trading economy surplus (of export value over import cost), and on the fact that China has now built up the world’s largest (ever in history) reserves of ‘hard’ currency (convertible to US dollars), in the form of US dollars themselves.

These two factors allow the Chinese to keep their currency pegged artificially low, relative to the value that the free market would give it in terms of US dollars. The US government, for all of its bravado and the ranting of internationally powerless members of the US Senate, can do nothing to force the Chinese to strengthen the yuan (the basic unit of renminbi).

China is thus enjoying a powerful advantage in that it takes fewer dollars to buy a yuan, than it should if the global free market operated in China. This is because China has accumulated so much ability, not just potential, to affect the world trading (export/import) markets.

With that introduction I am going to issue a caution, perhaps even a warning, to all of those calling for sustained increased prices for the rare earths. Be careful what you wish for.

“China speeds up yuan’s globalization” is a headline that appeared in the International Business Times last week. It joins a flood of other stories on this topic, now filling the news prior to a meeting between the US and Chinese presidents in this coming week. My first thought was to wonder how this Chinese move will affect the rare-metals market.

The US dollar supplanted the British pound sterling between World War I (a war which essentially made the UK insolvent) and the end of World War II (which made the UK bankrupt). Note well, that the British Empire gave up a century and a half of economic gains in a 31-year (1914-45) effort to decide the mastery of Europe, which the combatants started out believing would decide the fate of most of the world. Southeast Asia was a backwater in both wars as far as the issuer of the world’s de facto reserve currency (the UK) was concerned, in 1914 and in 1939. In 1947, Imperial Britain had been replaced by a fundamentally still-isolationist United States, as the absolute center of the financial world. In 1947, the USA held for its own account or for safekeeping, half of all the gold in the world. No greater accumulation of gold had ever before been seen, nor has it been since, at least so far.

The Chinese Empire collapsed in 1912, in a series of events more noticed in Hollywood than Washington, DC. Yet no Communist revolution immediately followed the fall of the last dynasty in China, as it did in Imperial Russia six years later. China literally seethed in revolutions and dictatorships until Japan, emulating European empires in their death throes, decided to create a protectionist trade zone with a complete self-sufficiency in the supply chains for metals, minerals and energy. It called its plan the ‘Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.’ The first move by Japan was to try to conquer China, piece by piece, to get its resources and acquire control of its population for use as labor.

The Japanese were defeated in China by the USA, which belatedly came to southeast Asia’s rescue when the Japanese miscalculated the consequences of going to war, with a far-off enemy with a larger manufacturing economy. The Chinese in all their suffering, noticed the Japanese error and resolved to never let it happen to them again. Note that the Communist revolution and ascendancy in China started during the attempted Japanese conquest, which went on for 14 years! The Communists were successful in 1949 and China became The Peoples’ Republic of China, as it is called today.

America, sitting on a massive hoard of gold in 1949 and enjoying the greatest industrial manufacturing-based consumer boom in history,ignored the devastated economy of China as too big a problem to solve in a reasonable time. It decided instead to revive Europe (and as it turned out, Japan) as a hoped-for market for American goods and services, to be paid for with cheap labor at first. Even though no- one in the McCarthy era period of anti-Communist knee-jerk political correctness would admit it, there was a feeling that the Soviet Union could and would now get bogged down for generations in China, which was seen as a basket case.

Unfortunately, many Americans of the political and economic class are basing their decisions with regard to China, as if the USA could catch up with Chinese politics and economics by simply adjusting America’s 1960s view of China. It is too late for that.

The Chinese renminbi has now begun a journey that I think ultimately will result in the yuan and the dollar both being reserve currencies and then in the yuan surpassing the dollar as the stronger reserve currency. This will occur in lock-step with the US reducing its ability to create wealth, through the production of natural resources and their conversion into finished goods in surpluses that can be exported, while the US maintains its standard of living.

This will probably not happen overnight; it could take a generation, because we are still in the period where Chinese investors are accumulating the US dollar as the reserve currency because they still fear using their own currency as a safe harbor, and because they have so much of the reserve currency that they are able to affect the political choices of the issuer of that currency.

The Chinese are well aware of the fact, conveniently forgotten by American politicians, that while the UK was the issuer and guarantor of the world’s reserve currency, it was also on the gold standard, and it was the world’s policeman, whether it liked it or not. Britain was the world’s policeman in order to protect its imperial trade routes. America did not take over this role after World War II. Instead, it immediately went to Cold War to prevent the ‘spread’ of communism. The greatest defeat in that Cold War was considered to be ‘the loss of China,’ although no-one suggested war either to prevent or redeem China’s ‘fall’, even when China as the newly minted PRC went to war with the US, by proxy, in Korea, which the US then, as now, refers to as a “police action.” In all fairness to the politicians of 1949 and the USA, we had just concluded a massive effort that destroyed China’s attempted conqueror, Japan, and the American people did not perceive the ‘loss’ of China as a near-term problem.

China is today still not a credible, conventional military threat to the USA. As in the Middle East, technology and training beat ill-equipped, ill-trained masses, every time. This means that militarily, without the direct and credible threat of mutual atomic annihilation, China cannot prevent the USA from acting anywhere in the world even as close to its own shores as Japan or Taiwan. China’s recent probing of Japanese resolve on sea floor rights to energy and minerals, has been cast as a rare-earth issue by myopic viewers of the international scene, and self-interested parties looking for drivers for investment in non-Chinese rare earth production. In fact, the confrontation was merely a skirmish in a larger war for natural resources, begun nearly a century ago by Japan, in emulation of Britain.

In the world of international trade of utilitarian commodities, metals, minerals, and energy sources, China is the demand driver overwhelmingly. Essentially all investment in new productive capacity for utilitarian commodities, is to add supply for serving Chinese demand. If this is a slight exaggeration, at least it is true that no-one would make anywhere near this level of investment, if it were not for the collateral of massive Chinese demand growth.

To put it mildly, China is in the driver’s seat (excuse the pun).

At the moment. China is the dominant player in the rare-earth space, which is where the operation of Western free-market capitalism, always seeking the lowest price, placed China. This cannot and will not change for two to three years, the least time it will take, if everything goes according to plan, for new or restarted production and refining in significant quantities of rare earths produced outside of China, refined outside of China, and incorporated in end-use products outside of China to come to the world market.

So, what is this to do with the value of the US dollar and the Chinese yuan?

If China continues to hold the price of the yuan where it is against the US dollar, then the only pressure to produce rare earths outside of China will be for strategic advantage to ensure security of supply, to maintain both civilian industry and military uses free of Chinese influence and control.
China today controls the rare-earth supply chain, because its price structure has moved that entire supply chain to China up to the point where high-purity metals and alloys are delivered to end users. Even there, at the point of end-use manufacturing, China is today the low-cost producer and so today, China is not only the monopoly producer of the rare earths, it is the dominant end-user of rare earths in the manufacturing of finished goods.

At least half or more of these rare-earth-containing finished goods are made in China for the export market. Therefore, it is in China’s economic interest to prevent the export of rare earths as raw materials. This has been the exact direction of Chinese export controls on rare earths since the beginning of this century.

If you believe, as the Chinese do, that the only remaining threat to their total control of the rare-earth supply chain is the Japanese rare-earth end-use products industry (such batteries, permanent magnets and lasers), then you will put pressure on Japan to move the last of the world’s non-Chinese, high-value-added sectors of rare-earth-based product manufacturing to China, or give the Japanese a reason to allow Chinese manufacturing competitors to compete in Japan (which today Japan does not do, in the case of magnets). Either of these moves would create jobs in China. which is always the goal of the Chinese economy, as it is the goal of the Japanese economy, and as it should be the goal of the US economy.

The point of all of this, is that it is China who will benefit most from price increases, for the rare earths as fabricated forms for industrial manufacturing end-use.

Chinese analysts predict that by 2015, China will produce just two-thirds of the world’s supply of new rare earths. Chinese analysts assume that Lynas, Molycorp, and perhaps, Toyota in Vietnam, will produce the remaining third.

The Chinese analyst community is silent about the overall percentage of the total value-add rare-earth supply chain that this one-third will represent.

I think that China will be completely self-sufficient in domestic rare-earth production for its supply chain in 2015 as it is today. I also think that higher prices for rare earths are inevitable as China cleans up the environment in general and in mining in particular. The one, the greening of rare earth mining, adds costs to rare-earth mining; the other, the greening of the Chinese economy, adds demand. Both are upward price drivers.

The real question is how much of the higher costs of rare earths can be absorbed by the Chinese supply chain, before increases in cost for value-add rise, to where a competitive supply chain can be economic in a foreign (to China) country other than Japan. Note that as rare-earth prices go up in China, they will also go up in Japan and that Japanese labor and overhead is vastly greater than that of China today. The gap will close, if it closes, only slowly even at Chinese rates of growth of costs. Those who think they will operate in the USA to add value to rare earths mined and refined in the USA, need to demonstrate that their supply chain total costs are below those of foreign competitors. Historically it is the very fact that this has not been so, which has driven the rare-earth supply chain to Japan and China in the first place.

China, in my opinion, has always wanted higher prices for rare earths, but has been prevented from getting them by fierce internal competition for supply from both legal and illegal sources. The elimination of unethical, dirty, and illegal competition is the target of the current consolidation and environmental remediation (of the rare earth mining sector) initiatives within the PRC.
Now, what about the value of the Yuan?

Chinese goods bought in China must be purchased in renminbi; that is the law. In order to buy or trade goods within China a foreign company must place a hard-currency deposit in a Chinese bank, as collateral for being allowed to purchase renminbi for use only in commercial transactions, at an exchange rate set by the Chinese Ministry of Finance.

So, if the Chinese re-value the renminbi up to reflect its strength as the US demands, then the number of dollars to buy the same number of renminbi will increase. Thus, without doing anything at all, the costs of Chinese goods to foreigners in the dollar/euro/yen economic zones (all of them are hard currencies exchangeable at market rates for one another), including rare rare earths, will rise, but the renminbi price will not rise just on that account.

If China, after imposing an increase in the value of the renminbi, then sees its internal rare-earth prices go up in renminbi, there will be a larger proportionate increase in the number of dollars it will then take to purchase the renminbi, to purchase the rare earths.

I believe that the cost of the rare-earth fabricated forms necessary to make end-use products in mass production, is only a small part of the final cost of the finished goods.

Therefore I believe that an increase in the prices of the rare earths in renminbi, without a contemporaneous increase in labor rates in China for workers who produce the finished goods, does not change China’s competitive advantage in the value chain for rare-earth-based products.
Unfortunately, such an increase will serve in the above case to make non-Chinese value chains even more uncompetitive, since other than in Japan, they will need to invest large amounts of capital to start or restart operations to refine, fabricate, and utilize rare earths in consumer products, and will at the same time have to train largely inexperienced engineers and workers to do jobs for which there is little or no domestic prior experience base to draw upon for instructors. Even if these barriers of capital and skilled labor are overcome, they will now have to play catch-up in technology and compete economically with long-established Chinese and Japanese industry, which has not been standing still waiting for them.

The best market plan for non-Chinese miners who plan to produce rare earths, is to acquire or JV with existing companies that already have the skill sets needed. These will be Chinese, Japanese, French, British, Indian, or Estonian companies. Some have already done this. Any mining venture that intends to go head-to-head with a Chinese mining venture, solely on the ability to produce ore concentrates or even separated and purified chemical compounds must, I think, fail.

There is also one more thing that all rare-earth end users must do. They must secure their supply of the total of the critical rare earths for their products or processes. This means to me, that they must secure their supplies of one or more of lanthanum, neodymium, samarium, europium, dysprosium, and terbium.

Since nature does not provide any one rare-earth deposit with commercial quantities of all of the rare earths, or all of the above critical rare earths, it is necessary always to choose one from ‘Column A’, a producer of the light rare earths, and one from’ Column B’, a producer of heavy rare earths. This is even true for the contemporary Chinese rare-earth-containing finished-goods industry.

The most critical of the current rare earths are dysprosium and terbium, two of the heavy rare earths, today produced only in China and historically produced only in the former Soviet Union and in China.

There are only a small number of rare-earth projects outside of China capable of producing commercial quantities of dysprosium and terbium. Some or all of these MUST be brought into production as soon as possible, because it is said by the Chinese themselves, that their heavy-rare-earth production has less than 25 years remaining at present levels, and much less if demand increases. China, like the rest of the rare-earth-using countries, is therefore also seeking out heavy-rare-earth production.

I believe that for heavy rare earths, and only heavy rare earths, strategic need will overcome simple economics, or at least the capitalization of strategic need will create the necessary economics to bring heavy-rare-earth-themed mines into production.

There will be no non-Chinese, rare-earth-based, mass-produced devices utilizing rare-earth permanent magnets, until a reliable steady supply of dysprosium can be secured. The lighting industry outside of China will founder ,without a secure supply of the heavy rare earth terbium.
Therefore, if there is to be a non-Chinese, rare-earth-utilizing manufacturing industry, one or more of the heavy-rare-earth deposits that are technically feasible, must be brought into production even if it is not economically sensible on a freestanding basis as a business.

You need to look at the TMR Advanced Rare-Earth Projects Index, produced and maintained by my colleague Gareth, as a metric to decide which rare-earth mines are going to be critical to Chinese and non-Chinese rare-earth supply chains. I am going to make my own selections in a separate article, so that I can explain to you why I chose some over others.
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About Jack Lifton

Jack Lifton is today's leading authority on the sourcing and end use trends of rare & strategic metals. He is a Founding Principal of Technology Metals Research, LLC and President of Jack Lifton, LLC, consulting for institutional investors doing due diligence on metal-related opportunities. When not trotting around the globe, Jack calls the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan home. Check out Jack's full bio for more details.

Israeli water technology makes water safe for drinking from almost any source.

Water, water everywhere and every drop to drink | environment

[Quote:]

"... Following a major earthquake in Taiwan in 2009, humanitarian aid workers from Israel brought along locally made WaterSheer products to ensure a steady stream of potable water for the survivors and to transport drinking water quickly to where it was needed most.

"You need high quality water in every circumstance, and we are able to provide it even in cases of disaster," says Yossie Sandak, CEO and co-founder of the three-year-old company based in Airport City, near Tel Aviv. "In Taiwan, within 48 hours our products were already in the field and purifying 16,000 liters (4,227 gallons) per day ... "

[Unquote.]

Read the rest on your own by clicking on hyperlink above.

BSi's Guidelines to Sustainability Report Assurance

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http://www.bsigroup.com/en/Assessment-and-certification-services/management-systems/Standards-and-Schemes/Sustainability-Report-Assurance/

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Independent Sustainability Report Assurance (SRA) provides an objective verification of your CSR/sustainability report. Assessments are normally conducted in accordance with the globally recognised Global Reporting Initiative, GRI (G3) Guidelines, and AA1000 Assurance Standard.

The BSI assurance process addresses three key areas of your reporting:

• Materiality - we'll assess your prioritization of issues and identify any omissions or misrepresentations that could influence the decisions or actions of your stakeholders. We'll also assess the significance of your report content in relation to your organization and your stakeholders.
• Completeness - we'll evaluate your organization's diligence in identifying and understanding the material impact of your sustainability performance.
• Responsiveness - we'll determine whether your report communicates and provides evidence that you have responded effectively to stakeholder concerns, policies and relevant standards.

On the successful completion of the assessment, we'll produce an Independent Assurance Opinion.

 

Matching your needs - precisely

Not all organizations require, or can attain, the same level of CSR/Sustainability Report Assurance. That's why our assurors can recommend any of four levels of SRA. Each one is specifically devised to meet the needs of organizations at differing stages of their reporting development.

Level 1: CSR/Sustainability Check
This entry level service is typically audited against the sustainable development maturity matrix in BS 8900. We evaluate whether your organization has processes defined and procedures in place to support the activities and programs needed to produce a meaningful report, and inform you of the outcome in a gap analysis report.

Level 2: Report Check
The information within your report is verified which may require one or two visits to your headquarters and discussions with senior management and other contributors. You will receive a recommendation aligned with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Application Levels and a report commentary for your internal use.

Level 3: Limited Assurance
This higher level of assurance is similar to that provided by financial auditors commenting on a company's report and accounts. We will evaluate your report in accordance with the principles of the GRI G3 Guidelines and AA1000AS, assessing your underlying data and management systems as well as your sustainability performance.

The depth of engagement must be sufficient to provide assurance that your report is free from material misstatement, based upon sampling within the agreed scope of the assurance and the information you provide. Along with the public Independent Assurance Opinion, you will receive a confidential report describing the assurance team's findings and providing you with insights into potential areas for improvement.

Level 4: Reasonable Assurance
This highest level of SRA evaluates your report in accordance with AA1000AS and/or the GRI G3 Guidelines or other applicable standard.

We will assess your underlying data and management systems to provide assurance in the extent to which your company has performed against your sustainability objectives and assure that your report is inclusive, complete and responsive to stakeholder needs. You will receive an Independent Assurance Opinion for publishing in your sustainability report as well as a detailed confidential engagement report describing the assurance team's findings and indicating areas for further improvement.

View the sustainability report assurance process flowchart (PDF, 57KB).

A comparison between ISO 14001 and BS EN 16001

Comparing ISO 14001 Environmental Management to BS EN 16001 Energy Management

The European standard for energy management systems – EN 16001 has recently been published and adopted as a British Standard, BS EN 16001:2009.

The European community of energy experts and practitioners has worked through the plethora of energy management standards and drawn up the best practice standard for energy management systems, BS EN 16001.

However, for those of you who are familiar with management system standards, you may be asking why there is a need for this standard when ISO 14001:2004, the standard for environmental management systems, addresses all environmental aspects including energy use?

Whilst BS EN 16001 is closely aligned to ISO 14001, the new standard places more emphasis on the identification and management of energy aspects rather than looking at all environmental aspects.

The remainder of this document aims to make a comparison between ISO 14001 and BS EN 16001 and highlight the differences clause by clause between them.

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Comparing ISO 14001 Environmental Management to BS EN 16001 Energy Management

Related Links:

Find out about BS EN 16001 Energy Management Certification

Learn more about BSI’s Kitemark scheme for Energy Reduction Verification

Nanotechnology Used to Create Artificial Palladium

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05 January 2011

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Posted by Jayne Kavanagh

Scientists in Japan claim to have employed nanoscience to create an artificial form of palladium.

A technique developed by Professor Hiroshi Kitagawa and researchers from Kyoto University has generated a synthetic form of the rare metal.

It was produced by combining molecules of silver and rhodium - two metals that usually do not mix together - to create particles of an alloy that has similar properties to palladium.

The nanoparticles were used to develop a fine solution spray of the alloy, which it is thought could be used in industrial applications rather than relying on Chinese imports of palladium, Professor Kitagawa told newspaper Yomiuri.

He explained further research is now taking place with auto manufacturers and electronics companies to develop the process.

In related news, RNCOS has forecast a compound annual growth rate of 19 per cent for the global nanotechnology industry from 2011 to 2013 in its latest forecast.

Schneider Electric implements an intelligent building management system for the Institut du Cerveau et de la Moelle épinière – ICM

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http://www.schneider-electric.com/corporate/en/press/press-releases/viewer-press-releases.page?c_filepath=/templatedata/Content/Press_Release/data/en/shared/2010/09/20100924_schneider_electric_implements_an_intelligent_building_management_syste.xml

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Rueil-Malmaison (France), September 24, 2010 – Schneider Electric has implemented an intelligent building management system for the Institut du Cerveau et de la Moelle épinière (ICM), a world centre for research, inaugurated today in Paris.

The ICM, which carries out both fundamental and clinical research, aspires to a better understanding of brain and spinal cord diseases and to rapidly develop effective treatments through research. The building, which is located at the heart of the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital Group, was designed to facilitate a new, collaborative vision of research over 22,000 m² of laboratories which bring together 600 researchers from around the world.

“Schneider Electric has implemented technologies which will provide the ICM and its occupants with comfort, energy efficiency, flexibility and a promising development,” said Frédéric Abbal, President of Schneider Electric France. “We have delivered efficient solutions to meet the requirements dictated by the nature of the ICM’s research activities. And by providing a “21 CFR part 11” compliant monitoring post, the Group has once again demonstrated its understanding of the particular needs of its health industry clients."

Schneider Electric has provided integrated technical solutions and services to achieve the highest levels of energy efficiency: Building Management System (BMS), metering system, live monitoring, etc. The systems will also ensure occupants remain comfortable: timer controls; lighting, heating and air-conditioning management systems, etc.

The BMS architecture is based on open protocols to control all functions: lighting, chilled beams, communication with electricity production, heating, and cooling systems, etc. The building has been fitted with a total of almost 5,800 control points, 4,600 of which are for heating or air conditioning equipment, and 1,200 for electrical distribution. The Group has provided specific control points for the ICM laboratories: temperature, fume cupboard¹ processes.

Using real-time energy consumption management and monitoring software, Schneider Electric has provided an innovative and simple intelligent energy management system.  Energy consumption levels will be available to all occupants in real time, displayed on two screens in the cafeteria and the ICM offices waiting room, via an energy consumption control panel.

¹A device for extracting toxic fumes emanating from products used in the laboratories (similar to an extractor hood)

About Schneider Electric
As a global specialist in energy management with operations in more than 100 countries, Schneider Electric offers integrated solutions across multiple market segments, including leadership positions in energy and infrastructure, industrial processes, building automation, and data centres/networks, as well as a broad presence in residential applications. Focused on making energy safe, reliable, and efficient, the company's 100,000 plus employees achieved sales of more than 15.8 billion euros in 2009, through an active commitment to help individuals and organisations “Make the most of their energy”.

www.schneider-electric.com
www.icm-institute.org

 

Materials to Research On (Polycrystalline Silicon)

Silicon Tetraflouride

Silane

Sodium Aluminum Tetrafluoride (SAF)

Silicon Powder

Polycrystalline Silicon

Doped Polycystalline Silicon

Crystalline Silicon - Arsenic Doped