csm chrome ore up

No mining analyst in Australia is looking a this yet!
Consolidated Minerals is the only Chrome ore miner in Australia , the price is already up to US$245/ton during the last month and is now set to rocket. If you add in the extra US$44/ton profit plus the new Chrome ore price of US$25/ton. CSM could make $50-60 millioan pa. profit on chrome ore alone.
India to impose $44 per tonne duty on chrome ore exports
28 February 2007 12:38
Indian finance minister P Chidambaram has imposed a Rs2,000 ($44) per tonne export duty on chrome ore, which will come into effect on April 1
from the metalbulletin http://www1.metalbulletin.com/welcome_2003.asp


India takes measures to cut chrome ore exports
The Indian government has introduced restrictive measures on chrome ore exports, effective 1st April, in a bid to satisfy its own stainless steel industry, which has complained about a shortage of raw materials in recent weeks against strong demand. "To ...
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http://www.miningweekly.co.za
SA to ban raw chromite exports - Deputy President
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South Africa's Department of Minerals and Energy planned to gazette new legislation preventing South African chrome miners from exporting unbeneficiated chrome ore, deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka said on Thursday.

The proposed law would stipulate ferrochrome as the least-beneficiated level at which the material could be exported, she said, referring specifically to a chrome producer that had been exporting raw chromite, to the detriment of local industry.

Speaking at the launch of the Xstrata-Merafe Lion ferrochrome smelter, Mlambo-Ngcuka said that government had taken into account an appeal from Xstrata that the export of unbeneficiated chromite be curbed, referring specifically to Kermas, which bought Samancor Chrome from BHP Billiton and Anglo American last year.

Kermas had admitted to exporting the some raw material to China, but later halted the practice.

It also dismissed suggestions that it was undermining the South African industry’s prospects by exporting chrome ore to China.

However, while this was happening, South Africa was using only 77% of its available converting capacity, Xstrata Alloys MD Chrome Deon Dreyer said last year.

In the same breath, Mlambo-Ngcuka praised Xstrata and Merafe for setting a trend of increasing beneficiation levels in South Africa, thereby supporting government's drive to create jobs and boost the local economy.

She said that South Africa was a dominant player in chrome, having 72% of the world's known chrome reserves, and is the number one producer of the world's ferroalloys, producing 41% of the material.

Beneficiated chrome was ten times more valuable than unbeneficiated chrome, and South Africa was losing that value-add benefits as well as employment opportunities, through the unbridled export of raw chromite ore, Dreyer said at the time.

Merafe CEO Steve Phiri told Mining Weekly Online on Thursday that Xstrata's South African operations had lost 16% of its market share because of chromite exports to China.

He said that Merafe “could not be more excited” about the announcement.

South Africa's raw chromite exports to China in 2005 were 760 000 t.

However, in 2006, this figure increased to a million tons, which Phiri said was bound to increase still further if something was not done to curb it.

He pointed out that the Indian Minister of Finance had indicated in his budget speech this year that the country would introduce a levy of $45 a ton of chromite exported, which would make it unattractive for Indian producers to export chromite, which mainly goes to China.

This meant that resources-hungry China would be looking increasingly to South Africa for chromite.

The Xstrata-Merafe JV had taken a decision not to export raw chromite, as the move would be in direct conflict with South Africa's beneficiation drive and would prevent growth in the country's ferrochrome industry.

Referring to the Deputy President's remarks on Thursday, he said he was glad to see this was now a “definite no-go area”.

“Our mineral resources belong to all the people of South Africa and, by exporting raw chromite, we are destroying jobs,” Phiri said.