Re: NTU - Northern Uranium
The alarm bells are ringing.
"On 7 September two Japanese coast guard vessels and a Chinese fishing trawler collided in an area of the East China Sea that Japan controls but China claims sovereignty over. The crew has been released but Japan is still holding the captain, believing he deliberately rammed their boats after being ordered to stop fishing in the disputed waters.
It is the Chinese retaliation that has alarmed not just the Japanese. It has banned exports of rare earths to Japan.
The use of China's dominance of rare earths as negotiating leverage in the non-commercial dispute with Japan will confirm the reservations in the West about the danger of allowing China to retain that dominance.
There were already concerns about the rationale for the cut to export quotas earlier this year, with the cynical interpreting it as an attempt by the Chinese to ensure that its control of their processing was extended to manufacture of the finished products, helping to push its own manufacturing up the value-add chain.
The threat to Japan's industrial base caused the Japanese to start stockpiling reserves. In the US, where the widespread use of rare earths in military applications adds another strategic dimension, there has been talk of subsiding the re-opening of production that was shut down by a combination of low prices and low-cost competition from China a decade ago.
If the export quotas provide motivation for China's customers to look for supply elsewhere, the embargo of exports to Japan adds urgency now that it is clear China is prepared to use its dominance in a geopolitical context."
Above is part of an article from;
http://www.businessspectator.com.au...Ferrous-pd20100923-9K9AY?OpenDocument&src=sph
These types of news items keep coming up and while they do then the interest in rare earths will keep increasing.
The alarm bells are ringing.
"On 7 September two Japanese coast guard vessels and a Chinese fishing trawler collided in an area of the East China Sea that Japan controls but China claims sovereignty over. The crew has been released but Japan is still holding the captain, believing he deliberately rammed their boats after being ordered to stop fishing in the disputed waters.
It is the Chinese retaliation that has alarmed not just the Japanese. It has banned exports of rare earths to Japan.
The use of China's dominance of rare earths as negotiating leverage in the non-commercial dispute with Japan will confirm the reservations in the West about the danger of allowing China to retain that dominance.
There were already concerns about the rationale for the cut to export quotas earlier this year, with the cynical interpreting it as an attempt by the Chinese to ensure that its control of their processing was extended to manufacture of the finished products, helping to push its own manufacturing up the value-add chain.
The threat to Japan's industrial base caused the Japanese to start stockpiling reserves. In the US, where the widespread use of rare earths in military applications adds another strategic dimension, there has been talk of subsiding the re-opening of production that was shut down by a combination of low prices and low-cost competition from China a decade ago.
If the export quotas provide motivation for China's customers to look for supply elsewhere, the embargo of exports to Japan adds urgency now that it is clear China is prepared to use its dominance in a geopolitical context."
Above is part of an article from;
http://www.businessspectator.com.au...Ferrous-pd20100923-9K9AY?OpenDocument&src=sph
These types of news items keep coming up and while they do then the interest in rare earths will keep increasing.
