ProEdgeWire Intel

The Pulse: Potash to pick up; Setback for Brazil project: Will some countries “die”?

Pulse_Final
On the back of news from Potash Corp of Saskatchewan that spot potash prices have gained up to $70/tonne in recent weeks, with deals in Southeast Asia being done at $470/tonne, comes a bank report that sees shipments of the fertilizer feedstock on the recovery track. Analyst Patricia Mohr at Toronto-based Scotiabank notes that spot prices were largely flat in April at around $405/tonne (against $452.50 last December) but look like picking up soon. Yet April, according to some press reports, saw Canada’s biggest monthly potash export volume since the 1990s.…

Japan’s ‘Abenomics’ fires first shot in the Rare Earths recovery

imagesCAH56QBT
The Japanese economy has started to grow for the first time in 20 years and this should help boost the rare earths sector. Japan’s new Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, was elected on a platform of economic growth and nationalism. Just months into office, Abe-san has been more successful than anyone had expected and the world has coined the new term’ Abenomics’ to describe the growth recipe that has made Abe into the ‘Iron Chef’ of the G8 nations. Japan’s GDP has risen 3.5%, while expectations were for a 2.8% more than…

How to co-exist with China’s rare earth oxide monopoly in a shared world

Steve Mackowski
Now I’m back in Australia, TMS2013 over and catching up on chores around our lovely Tasmanian property, I was hit by a revelation. It concerns the message being delivered by almost everyone in the ROW (rest of the world) REO (rare earth oxide) space. It is around their China strategy. Almost all of the potential producers are out to REPLACE China production. That is, they see it is their strategy to be able to produce into a supply chain instead of that particular supply chain being fed by China REO. Now…

Japan’s rediscovered economic success to fuel return of Nuclear Power

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The Japanese economy has started to improve according to the latest indicators. GDP growth is expected to increase 3.1% in the first quarter of 2013 compared to the previous quarter to 1.3% for 2013 and 2.3% for 2014. Perhaps, more significantly, Japanese citizens’ level of confidence in their economy has also improved – which is more than one can say for many other OECD countries – as hinted by a 5% rise in household demand last March. Many Japanese companies have announced they will raise salaries and bonuses. At the same…

Bangladesh textile factory disaster highlights importance of corporate sustainability

made in bangladesh
The death of over 1000 people killed in a Dhaka factory collapse late April should come as no surprise to those who are familiar with Bangladesh’s poor labor standards. Bangladesh has become one of the most important textile and garment manufacturing centers in the world. However, the secret of Bangladesh’s textile sector boom has less to do with a tradition of quality, outstanding design and craftsmanship. No, the reason has far more, exclusively so, with the fact that major international garment producers can secure manufacturing at very low cost thanks to ‘world…

The Syrian Crisis and the rise of BRICS: an economic and geopolitical Argument against Intervention

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Two Israeli air raids last week against Syrian military facilities, are said to be responsible for killing 42 Syrian soldiers, adding considerable tension to an already highly volatile Syrian crisis. The air attacks, which Syrian officials said used depleted uranium shells, came just days after the White House and the EU discussed what to do about purported evidence of Syrian government use of chemical weapons. While there are doubts about those claims, given that Carla Del Ponte from the UN Commission of Inquiry on violations of human rights in Syria, has…

Lynas survives ‘Make or Break’ Election as Government Coalition Wins

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The ruling coalition in Malaysia has won Sunday’s parliamentary election on Sunday. The turnout reached a record 80 percent. Lynas Corp (ASX: LYC | OTCQX: LYSDY), the Australian rare earths mining and processing company, also scored claim an important victory on Sunday.  News of the current government Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition’s win caused shares in Lynas to rise about 20% at one point in trading at the ASX. Many feared that Lynas’s AUD$ 800 million Advanced Material Plant (LAMP), which officially started producing rare earths last February, would have faced an…

The Pulse: Ripples in potash sector; Turkey will need uranium; Japan’s offshore wind push

The-Pulse-Robin-Bromby
Potash is the news with two developments  — a new controversy over Saskatchewan potash policy and India slicing its subsidies (again). Clearly, it may not be all plain sailing for the potash producers in the near future with London brokers Whitman Howard predicting subdued Indian demand and prices possibly going lower than the $400/tonne recently negotiated with Indian and Chinese customers. As of April 1, the Indian government cut its potash and phosphate subsidies. The hardest hit is muriate of potash, the dominant form imported by India; those subsidies have been…

Japanese Firms remain reluctant to reduce Reliance on Chinese Rare Earths

China and Japan
“TDK to establish a joint venture in China”: on April 26, Japan’s TDK Corporation announced that a new company called “Guangdong TDK Rising Rare Earth High Technology Material Co., Ltd”, would be set up through the participation of three companies, which are TDK, Tokai Trade Co., Ltd. And Guangdong's state-owned heavy rare earths producer, Rising Nonferrous Metals Co Ltd. Together they plan to establish a joint venture in Meizhou City, Guangdong Province, China. In addition, the shareholding ratio in the joint venture is 59% for TDK, 37% for Rising Nonferrous Metals…

Damascus bombing limits risk of Intervention in Syria over Chemical Weapons

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For almost five decades, the Baath regime - led by Hafez al-Asad until 2000, succeeded by his son and current president Bashar al-Asad – in Syria seemed to have no rivals. There was a revolt, led by the Muslim Brotherhood in the city of Hama from 1976 to 1982, which, despite the violence, never managed to produce an existential threat to the Asad regime. In the two years of civil war that effectively begun in April 2011, one of the most important Arab capitals, Damascus, has become a battlefield and the…

Rare Earth “Market Based” Solutions Untenable For National Security Needs

Department-of-Defense
Nearly four years of turbulent markets for rare earth elements have exposed an inexplicable passivity within policy elements of the Department of Defense when it comes to securing supplies of strategic materials and the technologies associated with them. Despite unpredictable rare earth availability, the Department has failed to take action to support development of rare earth supplies, instead adopting a “market based” approach. With this approach, Department officials have ignored that the nation is sitting atop the same powder keg that ignited recent upheaval. In April 2012, Bloomberg interviewed the Pentagon’s…
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Lonmin Strike Halts Marikana Mine After Union Worker Killed

May 14, 2013 -- South Africa (Source: Bloomberg) -- Lonmin Plc (LMI), the world’s third-largest platinum producer, said operations at its Marikana mine in South Africa have been halted after workers refused to go underground following a union official’s death. Mining is suspended because of “an illegal work stoppage,” Sue Vey, a company spokeswoman, said in a text message. None…

China Yuan Declines as Lower Central Bank Fixing Forces Retreat

May 15, 2013 -- China (Source: Bloomberg) -- China’s yuan fell after the central bank lowered its reference rate, forcing the currency to weaken to stay within the permitted trading range. The People’s Bank of China cut the fixing 0.06 percent to 6.2070 per dollar as the Dollar Index (DXY) climbed to the highest since July. The fixing was 1.03 percent weaker than yesterday’s closing level in…

Malaysia’s Election: Good for Business?

April 26, 2013 (Financial Times) -- As we come to the end of the first week of official campaigning in Malaysia’s cliffhanger general election – expected to the closest since the country’s independence in 1957 – a strange thing is happening. Foreign investor confidence in the southeast Asian nation of 29m people was supposed to be getting wobbly. But it…

Can’t Buy Me Soft Power

April 26, 2013 (Source: Economist) -- The tentacles of Chinese demand now reach into every corner of Asia. The incongruously lavish swallow-houses in remote Indonesian villages, supplying birds’ nests for Chinese soups; the casinos of Singapore; the Indian poultry farms now finding a market for once-discarded chicken’s feet; the vast mines ripping open the Australian Pilbara and the Mongolian Gobi.…

India and Germany Agree to Broaden Bilateral Cooperation

April 12, 2013 (Source: Economic Times) Berlin -- India and Germany today agreed to broaden their cooperation and "shape the future" with focus on trade, bilateral investment, energy, hi-tech and defence even as both sides committed themselves to EU-India negotiations for a "broad based, ambitious and balanced" FTA. Besides agreeing to greater cooperation at all international bodies, both sides agreed…

EU Seeks New Anti-dumping Trade Powers with China in Mind

April 10, 2013 (Source: Reuters) Brussels -- The European Union's trade chief Karel De Gucht asked for broad new trade powers on Wednesday to make it easier to launch anti-dumping cases, particularly against China. Although the proposed rules do not mention China by name, EU officials said they were designed to give the EU more leverage against the country and…

Angola Goes Full Steam Ahead in Attracting Investment in its Minerals

April 8, 2013 (Source: Independent Online) -- Angola, the world’s fifth-largest diamond producer, had cut mine taxes and would spend billions of dollars to attract investment into mineral deposits, Geology and Mines Minister Francisco Queiroz said. The projects included the $900 million (R8.2 billion) Cassinga iron-ore mine, fertiliser output of 400 000 tons a year and a $400m manganese development,…

South Africa and Russia’s Platinum ‘Pie-crust Promises’

April 5, 2013 (Source: BDLive) -- In response to promises that they would always be good, Mary Poppins chided her charges with the term "pie-crust promise". This was a promise that was easily made and easily broken; a promise that had no purpose other than the immediate goal of easing the current situation and making those involved feel good. What…

China Cited by U.S. for Trade Barriers on Autos, Steel, DVDs

April 1, 2013 (Source: Bloomberg) -- China continues to impede imports from U.S. producers of autos, steel, beef and copyrighted products such as books and DVDs, the U.S. Trade Representative’s office said. While the Asian nation has made progress opening its markets to foreign competition, “some serious problems remain, such as China’s refusal to grant trading rights for certain industries,”…

War Risk Rises Quickly in Korea

(Special Feature, Courtesy: Eric Margolis) --The United States and the two feuding Koreas could blunder into a real war unless both Pyongyang and Washington cease provoking one another. Last week, two nuclear-capable US B-2 stealth bombers flew non-stop from America to South Korea, and then home. These ‘invisible’ aircraft can carry the GBU-43/B MOAB 13,600kg bomb that is said to be able…

Ethiopian Government Focuses on Private Sector as “engine” for growth

March 27, 2013 --  Sinknesh Ejigu, Minister of Mines for the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia in an interview with Tracy Weslosky, Publisher of ProEdgeWire (ProEdgeWire.com) discusses attracting investment capital into Ethiopia to enhance growth through teamwork, research and a clear economic policy. Minister Sinknesh Ejigu starts: “The vision is to take our people out of poverty.” Explaining that government…

Japan Aims to Win New Allies in Africa with Aid

March 25, 2013 (Source: Deutsche Welle) -- Tokyo plans to provide extra aid to African states to foster stability on the continent, but also to give Japanese companies a better foothold so they do not slip further behind China in the economic diplomacy stakes. For years, Japan has been one of the most generous providers of Official Development Assistance to…
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