China cracks down on illegal moly mining in Guangdong
Hong Kong (Platts)--10Aug2009 China is moving against illegal molybdenum mining in Guangdong Province's Yangchun City as miners scramble for the rich local moly ore resources, a source at Beijing Antaike, the state-run metals information provider said Monday.
"Unlicensed miners seek only mines with moly ores of high grade, leaving behind the poor ones, destroying local mines," the Antaike source said.
Chinese media reported that illegal miners rented over 20,000 acres of land from local landlords for moly mining in Yangchun, which has high-grade moly resources reaching over 60,000 mt.
According to the Yangchun District Party Committee, the committee, together with local police and officials from the Ministry of Land and Resources as well as the State Administration of Work Safety lately arrested four persons from two local mining companies, which were allegedly involved in stealing 12,000 mt of moly resources in Yangchun.
Unlawful mining is also happening in other key local moly production zones in the Henan, Shaanxi, Jilin and Liaoning Provinces, the Antaike source said.
According to the Antaike source, the central government has unified moly mining standards, and bans mining of moly ore with less than 0.04% content, but provincial governments have different requirements with respect to underground moly recovery rates and open moly mines' exploitation rates.
Henan Province, for instance, requires the local underground moly recovery rate to reach at least 80% and open moly mines' exploitation rates to be at least 92%.
Meanwhile, the Antaike source predicted China's national moly concentrate output in 2009 would grow only 10% from the 2008 levels on the shutdown of some mines in the first two quarters of this year on weak moly prices.
Chinese local ferromoly prices stood at Yuan 165,000-170,000/mt ($24,143-24,874/mt) in August, lower than over Yuan 200,000/mt in late 2008.
China produced 180,589 mt moly concentrate in 2008, up 22% from 2007, figures from China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association showed.
"Chinese moly mine operation rates in July-August were 80%, higher than around 60% in Q1 and Q2," the Antaike source said.
Total Chinese moly concentrate output was 31,937 mt in January-May this year, up 4% on year, CNIA figures showed. But the H1 figure was unavailable. --Joshua Leung, [email protected]
MOL Price at posting:
$1.25 Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
