Lithium Monopoly in the Making? Beijing Expands in the Lithium Triangle – by Daniel A. Peraza (Geopolitical Monitor – August 23, 2022)

https://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/

China aims to expand its influence in the “Lithium Triangle” as a component of a broader campaign to construct a near-monopoly in the global lithium market. The Lithium Triangle, comprising Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile, accounts for approximately 56% percent of global lithium supply.

Beijing’s acquisition of multiple Argentinian, Chilean, and Bolivia lithium mining operations enables China to dominate regional lithium operations. From 2018- 2020, China invested approximately $16 billion on mining projects in the Lithium Triangle and will likely continue to invest in the region.

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China Lithium Prices Near Record as Power Cuts Squeeze Market – by Annie Lee (Bloomberg News – August 23, 2022)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — Prices of lithium in China are close to a record high as a power crisis in the nation’s major hub for the vital electric-vehicle battery ingredient threatens an already-tight market.

Sichuan, home to more than a fifth of China’s lithium production, extended industrial power cuts this week amid the most intense heat wave in more than a half century. The supply disruptions in the province are set to add fuel to the battery metal’s stunning rally in the past year, with lithium carbonate prices on Monday reaching the highest level since April at 484,500 yuan ($70,610) a ton.

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BHP Hits Profit Record And Sees Demand Healing in China – by James Fernyhough (Bloomberg/Yahoo Finance – August 2022)

https://www.yahoo.com/

(Bloomberg) — BHP Group, the world’s biggest miner, posted its highest ever full-year profit on record commodity prices, and will push ahead with growth options on a stronger demand outlook in China.

The producer will study plans to expand its top-earning iron ore unit to 330 million tons of production a year, and is continuing to assess options to lift volumes in copper and nickel, Melbourne-based BHP said Tuesday in a statement. A giant new potash mine in Canada remains on track to begin out in 2026.

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Turquoise Hill rejects Rio Tinto’s $2.7 billion takeover offer – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – August 15, 2022)

https://www.mining.com/

Canada’s Turquoise Hill Resources (TSX, NYSE: TRQ) has rejected majority shareholder Rio Tinto’s (ASX: RIO) bid to buy the 49% stake it doesn’t already own in the company for $2.7 billion, saying it did not reflect its full and fair value.

The decision by the special committee appointed by Turquoise Hill blocks Rio Tinto’s efforts to gain greater control of the giant Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold mine it’s developing in Mongolia.

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Why Australian iron ore could save Taiwan as China ponders the economic ramifications of invasion – by Ian Verrender (Australian Broadcasting Corporation – August 14, 2022)

https://www.abc.net.au/

As the dark clouds of war gathered over north-east Asia in 1938, a curious battle took place at home which forever tainted the memory of Liberal Party founder Sir Robert Menzies and that could be a portend of what lies ahead.

Then-Attorney General in the Lyons government, Menzies became embroiled in a fight with waterfront unions in Port Kembla over the loading of a British steamer, the SS Dalfram, with BHP produced pig-iron bound for Japan.

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In Sorowako – by Adam Bobbette (London Review of Books – August 2022)

https://www.lrb.co.uk/

Sorowako,​ on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, is the site of one of the largest nickel mines on earth. Nickel is an invisible part of many everyday objects: it disappears into stainless steel, the heating elements of domestic appliances and the electrodes of rechargeable batteries.

It was formed here more than two million years ago, when the hills that surround Sorowako began to emerge along an active fault. Laterites – iron oxide and nickel-rich soils – developed through the relentless erosion of tropical rain. When I rode my scooter into the hills, the ground duly changed colour, becoming red with blood-orange streaks.

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Tesla needs nickel to dominate the car industry. It just signed a $5 billion deal with the metal’s largest source – by Nicholas Gordon (Fortune Magazine – August 11, 2022)

https://fortune.com/

If Elon Musk wants to sell 20 million cars a year by 2030, he’ll need a lot of nickel—a key metal used in the electric batteries that power Tesla cars. And now, after years of wooing, the largest source of the metal seems to have won the Tesla CEO over.

On Monday, an Indonesian cabinet minister told CNBC Indonesia that Tesla had agreed to buy $5 billion worth of nickel products from the Southeast Asian country over the next five years. Indonesia is the world’s biggest source of nickel, with about 23.7% of the world’s reserves, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. (The U.S. imports most of its nickel—which is also used to make alloys like stainless steel—from Canada, Norway, Finland, and Australia).

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‘The Sacrifice Zone’: Myanmar bears cost of green energy – by Dake Kang, Victoria Milko and Lori Hinnant (Associated Press/Hawaii Tribune-Herald – August 10, 2022)

https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/

The birds no longer sing. The fish no longer swim in rivers that have turned a murky brown. The animals do not roam, and the cows are sometimes found dead. The people in this northern Myanmar forest have lost a way of life that goes back generations. But if they complain, they, too, face the threat of death.

This forest is the source of several key metallic elements known as rare earths, often called the vitamins of the modern world. Rare earths now reach into the lives of almost everyone on the planet, turning up in everything from hard drives and cellphones to elevators and trains.

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Mongolia: On the Verge of a Mineral Miracle – by Pranay Varada (Harvard International Review – February 11, 2022)

https://hir.harvard.edu/

Between the vast expanses of Siberia and the sprawling Gobi desert lies Mongolia, the world’s most sparsely populated country. Over the past 50 years, this nation of just over 3 million, covering a landmass more than twice the size of Texas, has navigated a transition from a mostly nomadic lifestyle to a market economy.

It may not seem like it at first, but Mongolia could be a much wealthier nation within the next 20 years, on the level of the “Asian Tigers” of the 1990s: Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. It’s been called the “wolf” economy, and for good reason: there’s over US$1 trillion—with a “t”—of mineral resources on the land.

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China Is Moving Rapidly Up the Rare Earth Value Chain – by Xianbin Yao (Brink News – August 7, 2022)

https://www.brinknews.com/

China is making an unrelenting effort to integrate and upgrade its rare earth supply chain of upstream mining, processing, manufacturing, and deeper applications. Although it has only about one-third of the world’s rare earth reserves, China now accounts for 60% of global rare earth mined production, 85% of rare earth processing capacity, and over 90% of high-strength rare earth permanent magnets manufactured.

In short, China aims to transform itself from the largest producer and refiner of rare earth elements to being the world’s major high value-add manufacturer of the clean energy products dependent on rare earth metals and other critical minerals.

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Explained: What Is Minerals Security Partnership? Which Countries Are Part Of It And Why? – by Radifah Kabir (ABP Live.com – August 5, 2022)

https://news.abplive.com/

The Minerals Security Partnership was announced in June 2022, with an aim to strengthen critical mineral supply chains. Also know what are critical minerals, and why they are so important.

The Minerals Security Partnership (MSP) is an ambitious new initiative to bolster critical mineral supply chains, announced by the United States (US) and key partner countries in June 2022. During the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada convention in Toronto, the largest mining event in the world, the US and key partner countries made the announcement.

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Copper Worth Nearly Half a Billion Dollars Goes Missing in China (Bloomberg News – August 4, 2022)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — A group of Chinese companies are investigating why a commodities storage site in northern China is holding only one third of the copper concentrate they were financing, according to people familiar with the situation.

Traders from more than a dozen mostly state-owned firms gathered in Qinhuangdao city this week after becoming aware of the missing material following concerns into the borrower’s finances, said the people, who asked not to be identified as they aren’t authorized to speak publicly.

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Column: Indonesian tax will shake up the nickel export mix again – by Andy Home (Reuters – August 5, 2022)

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON, Aug 4 (Reuters) – Indonesia’s planning to reshape the global nickel market again. The country is the world’s largest and fastest-growing producer of nickel, used in both stainless steel and electric vehicle (EV) batteries.

It banned the export of nickel ore in 2020, forcing its mining sector to build out processing capacity. The huge flows of ore to China’s stainless steel mills have been replaced by shipments of nickel pig iron (NPI) and ferronickel.

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New Indonesian nickel supply douses expectations for fresh price rally – by Pratima Desai (Financial Post/Reuters – July 21, 2022)

https://financialpost.com/

LONDON — Substantial new nickel supplies from top producer Indonesia in years ahead will ensure prices don’t return to levels that sparked chaotic trading in March, despite robust demand growth from stainless steel and electric vehicle battery makers.

However, prices now around $21,000 a tonne on the London Metal Exchange (LME), though down about 80% since hitting all-time highs in March, are still high enough to incentivise investment in new production capacity.

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Chinese Lithium Giant Pulls EVs Deeper Into Forced Labor Glare – by David Stringer and Annie Lee (Bloomberg News – July 17, 2022)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — A lithium producer for carmakers including BMW AG and Tesla Inc. is beginning work to assess battery metals projects in Xinjiang, deepening links between electric vehicle supply chains and a region at the heart of human-rights allegations against China.

Ganfeng Lithium Co., China’s top producer of the material, is partnering through a subsidiary with a state-backed entity to accelerate exploration for and potentially develop lithium, nickel and other critical metal assets in the region.

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