马克•史密斯(Mark Smith)是丹佛莫利矿业公司(Molycorp Minerals)的首席执行官，听他讲述该公司最大的资产，感觉就像回到了中学的化学课上。铈、镧、镨、钕……他所讲的这个矿，其矿床富含周期表上某些比较神秘的元素。
“的确很难跟投资者解释我们的业务，”史密斯承认。
然而，对全球经济来说，这些所谓的稀有金属和稀土元素，与铜和铝一样至关重要。从手机电池上的钴，到丰田普锐斯(Toyota Prius)混合动力汽车上的钕，“稀有金属和稀土元素涉及现代生活的方方面面，”位于伦敦的稀有金属行业协会(Minor Metals Trade Association)的盖伊•达比(Guy Darby)表示。
拿汽车来说。在20世纪初，汽车一般由5种原材料制造而成，也就是木材、橡胶、钢铁、玻璃和黄铜。而如今，根据美国国家科学院(National Academies)一份由为政府提供科学技术建议的专家撰写的报告，“一辆普通汽车的各个部件，可能包含多达39种的不同矿物”，包括一些不知名的金属。
需求增加带动价格上涨。在过去5年内，许多稀有金属和稀土元素的价格上涨了两倍甚至更多。由于这些矿物大部分产自中国，而中国首先要满足本国工业的需求，西方商政两界都已开始担心起未来的供应问题。另一家科学组织、美国国家研究委员会(National Research Council)在分析了2007年的市场状况后总结到：对外国资源的依赖，可能“使美国众多行业面临政治、经济及其它方面的风险”。
为此，一些少有人知的原材料，如铽、钐和钌，已开始引起高度关注。而以往，只有能源和粮食安全曾受到这种程度的关注。早在1992年，中国领导人邓小平就曾说过：“中东有石油，中国有稀土。”
由于数量仍然较少，即使是供需轻微变化的传言，也会导致价格成十倍的涨跌。不过，由于价格总体上处于升势，中国面临丧失绝对主导地位的前景。随着价格走高，其它国家的生产将变得更具经济可行性。2002年，中国出产的这类矿物大量涌进市场，导致价格大幅下跌，莫利矿业公司关闭了位于加利福尼亚与内华达两州交界处的山口(Mountain Pass)矿场。如今，史密斯表示，山口矿场可以重新开工了。
风力涡轮机等“绿色技术”的发展，预计也将为该行业带来动力。美国地质调查局(Geological Survey)表示，在过去30年里，稀土元素在绿色领域的应用“显著增加”。该政府机构认为，这一趋势将持续下去。在多伦多上市的矿业企业阿瓦朗稀有金属(Avalon Rare Metals)估计，约25%的新技术依赖于稀有金属和稀土元素。
稀有金属和稀土元素之所以被冠以“稀”字，更多是因为人们对它们缺乏了解，而不是真的稀缺。有些就像镍等贱金属或者黄金等贵金属一样常见，例如锰。不过，正如美国地质调查局指出的，与普通的贱金属和贵金属相比，稀有金属和稀土元素分布得过于分散。只有含量足够高的少数矿场，才具有生产可行性。
因此，大部分供应来自少数几个矿场。中国内蒙的白云鄂博矿场是全球最大的，其次是山口矿场，澳大利亚的威尔德山(Mount Weld)矿场排在第三。与山口矿场一样，威尔德山矿场目前也在关闭之中，但同样有可能恢复生产。
在大宗商品领域，中国贪婪的胃口主导着全球需求走势。而对那些少有人知的金属来说，中国即使不是唯一的、也是最主要的供应国。尤其是稀土元素，全球97%的供应量来自中国——全球对元素周期表上这17种元素的需求正在迅猛增长。
中国的绝对主导地位，加上近些年来中国为满足国内需求不断增长而施行的出口配额制，引发了人们对长期供应的担忧。许多专业人士推测，未来5年内，市场可能会出现供应吃紧。业内广受关注的独立分析师达德利•金司诺司(Dudley Kingsnorth)就是其中之一。
去年底市场盛传，中国将进一步收紧稀土元素出口配额。人们对中国处于垄断地位的担忧随之加剧。过去10年里，由于相关配额政策，中国的稀土出口量明显减少。不过，这一传言最终证明是虚假的。北京方面近期放宽了出口配额，允许在今年上半年出口1.63万吨具有战略重要性的稀土金属，比去年同期增加8%以上。
中国工业和信息化部原材料司副巡视员王彩凤去年在一次工业会议上表示，中国政府不会“随便”做出决定。“我们一切决定都会符合科学发展。中国不会关上大门。”
这类安抚不足以减轻美国政界的担忧。美国国会议员迈克•科夫曼(Mike Coffman)就力主通过立法，尽可能地降低美国在稀有金属上对外国供应的依赖。他表示：“这在战略上是危险的。”
然而，形势并不完全像看上去的那样。越来越多的西方企业为了绕开配额，陆续把生产转移到中国。配额限制只适用于矿石，而不适用于磁铁或电池之类的制成品。
事实上，在有些人看来，中国实行出口配额制，就是为了促使外国企业把生产转移到中国。这些企业正纷纷把厂址迁到内蒙各矿场附近。他们表示，中国并非以限制供应来发动资源战争，而是要推动具有附加值的行业转移到本国，从中获取经济利益。
“中国想要的不是向别人供应稀土元素，让他们去制造普锐斯或Volt汽车的电池，而是自己制造和销售汽车，”英国李普曼•沃尔顿(Lipmann Walton)贸易公司的安东尼•李普曼(Anthony Lipmann)表示。
中国还有另外两个理由加强控制。第一，中国正试图取缔非法、不安全且造成污染的各类大宗原料开采。矛盾的是，开采稀土元素会对环境造成潜在危害，但这些元素对许多绿色技术来说又是至关重要的。第二，价格涨幅低于中国矿商的期望值。贸易商表示，在中国政策制定者看来，限制供应将会抬高价格。
贸易商表示，与稀土元素相比，全球对稀有金属的需求不那么受制于中国。就拿钛、铼和锂等稀有金属来说，中国甚至不是占据主导地位的供应国，智利、美国、刚果、澳大利亚和俄罗斯等也是主要生产国。因此，在过去两年里，投资者的热情主要集中在稀土元素上。矿业企业发出的短缺在即的警告，更是助长了投资者的兴趣。这一泡沫于去年底破裂。
但是，各国政策制定者仍然感到担忧。日本已开始储备稀有金属。欧盟委员会(European Commission)正考虑列出一份“关键”稀有金属清单，并预计将于今年晚些时候宣布相关措施，其中包括建立储备。
鉴于矿业游说人士要求建立战略性储备，美国国防部已就拟定类似清单展开讨论。“这既是因为，[稀有金属]在对经济至关重要的高科技领域应用广泛；也是因为，与比较传统的贱金属和黑色金属相比，它们在供应上面临的风险更大。”美国国家科学院在报告中表示。
有鉴于此，一些需要稀有金属和稀土元素的企业正纷纷为勘测和开采活动提供支持，以求实现供应来源多元化，并使价格保持低位。例如，日本汽车制造商丰田旗下的丰田通商(Toyota Tsusho)上月宣布，已与澳大利亚Orocobre达成协议，将协助该公司在阿根廷开采锂矿。锂可应用于混合动力汽车的电池上。
许多贸易商仍持怀疑态度，认为政界对所谓“关键”金属的担忧纯属过虑。他们认为，这类金属不会面临比铁矿石等普通大宗原料更为严重的短缺。
李普曼指出，政策制定者以前就曾因担忧金属供应问题而胡乱出招。他记得，美国一度认为锡是一种关键金属。由于担忧共产主义会从朝鲜半岛蔓延到印尼、泰国和马来西亚等重要锡生产国，美国储备了大量的锡。
在1972年顶峰时期，美国的锡储备量多达25万吨，超过当时全球一年的总供应量。“为求在不干扰市场的情况下清除这些储备，美国政府花了30年时间，”李普曼回忆道。
如今，人们担心，为了降低对中国稀有金属与稀土元素的依赖，西方各国政府可能会重蹈覆辙。这些矿物虽然比锡稀罕一些，但需求量可是要少得多。
译者/杨远
Get Mark Smith talking about his company's biggest asset and the feeling is one of being transported back to a high-school chemistry class. Cerium, lanthanum, praseodymium, neodymium . . . The mine described by the head of the Denver-based Molycorp Minerals contains deposits featuring some of the more esoteric reaches of the periodic table.
“It is really a challenge to explain to investors what we do,” Mr Smith concedes.
Yet these so-called minor metals and rare earths are as critical as copper and aluminium to the global economy. From the cobalt in mobile phone batteries to the neodymium in Toyota's hybrid Prius cars, “minor metals and rare earths are involved in every aspect of modern life”, says Guy Darby of the London-based Minor Metals Trade Association.
Take cars. At the start of the 20th century they were typically made up of about five raw materials: wood, rubber, steel, glass and brass. But today, according to a report by the National Academies, which has been written by experts who advise the US on science and technology, “a typical automobile may contain up to 39 different minerals in various components” – including several obscure metals.
That increased demand has pushed prices up, with many types trebling or more in value in the past five years. With China dominating much of the supply, and with its own industry's demands to satisfy, policymakers and business in the west have started to worry about future availability. The National Research Council of the US, another scientific group, after studying the market in 2007 concluded that the reliance on foreign sources could “expose a range of US industries to political, economic and other risk”.
The result: raw materials as little-known as terbium, samarium and ruthenium are starting to command a level of attention once reserved for energy and food security. “Rare earths are to China as oil is to the Middle East,” Deng Xiaoping proclaimed when he was leader as far back as 1992.
With volumes still small, even rumours of tiny variations in supply or demand can send prices up or down by a factor of 10. But because the overall trend is upward, China faces the prospect of losing its total grip as the increase in prices makes other countries' production more viable economically than before. Molycorp's Mountain Pass mine, which sits on the California-Nevada border, was shut in 2002 when prices plummeted as Chinese production flooded the market. Now, Mr Smith says it could be reopened.
The growth of “green technologies” such as wind turbines is also expected to boost the sector. The environmental applications of rare earth elements “have increased markedly” over the past 30 years, according to the US Geological Survey, a government agency, which expects the trend to continue. Avalon Rare Metals, a Toronto-listed mining company, reckons that about 25 per cent of new technologies rely on minor metals and rare earths.
“Minor” metals and “rare” earth elements owe those designations more to a lack of familiarity than true scarcity. Some, including manganese, are as common as base metals such as nickel or precious metals such as gold. However, as the US Geological Survey notes, in contrast to ordinary base and precious metals, minor metals and rare earths are so dispersed that production is feasible only in the few places where they are present in high enough concentrations.
Most supply thus comes from a handful of mines. Bayan Obo, in the Chinese region of Inner Mongolia, is the world's largest, followed by Mountain Pass, then Mount Weld in Australia. Like Mr Smith's facility, Mount Weld is currently inactive, though production there is also likely to restart.
So in a world in which Beijing's voracious appetite for commodities dominates demand trends, China is also the main, if not only, supplier of a number of those little-known metals. In particular, it accounts for 97 per cent of the global supply of rare earth elements – a list of 17 elements of the periodic table for which demand is growing fast.
China's supremacy, together with quotas placed by Beijing on exports over the past few years amid rising domestic demand, has triggered concerns about long-term supplies. Dudley Kingsnorth, an independent analyst who is widely followed in the industry, is one of the experts who reckons the squeeze could come in the next five years.
Concerns about China's dominance were aggravated by market rumours late last year that Beijing was about to tighten its rare earth elements export quota further, extending a policy that has seen a notable cut in exportable quantities in the past decade. However, the traders' chatter proved false: Beijing eased its quotas recently, allowing exports of 16,300 tonnes of strategically important rare earth metals for the first half of this year, up by more than 8 per cent from the same period in 2009.
Wang Caifang, deputy director- general of China's Ministry of Industry, told an industry conference last year that Beijing would not take “arbitrary” decisions. “All our decisions will be consistent with scientific development,” she said. “China will not close its doors.”
Such reassurances are not enough to ally the concerns of US politicians such as Mike Coffman, a congressman who has pushed for new legislation to minimise American dependence on foreign supplies of obscure metals. “This is strategically dangerous,” he has argued.
Yet all is not quite as it may seem. More and more more western companies have been shifting production to China in order to bypass the quotas, as the limits apply only to the ores and not to finished products such as magnets or batteries.
Indeed, some see the export quotas as an attempt by Beijing to accelerate that trend, with companies relocating near its mines in Inner Mongolia. China, they say, is not clamping down on supplies as part of a resource war but is attempting to move value-added industry into the country in order to profit from the presence.
“China does not want to supply rare earth to build a Prius or Volt car battery: it wants to build and market the vehicle,” says Anthony Lipmann of Lipmann Walton, a UK-based trader.
China has two other reasons to tighten its grip. For one, Beijing is trying to clamp down on illegal, unsafe and polluting mining across all commodities. Paradoxically, mining rare earth elements – crucial for a number of green technologies – is potentially damaging for the environment. Also, prices have not risen as much as Chinese miners had hoped; the country's policymakers believe that restricting supply will push prices up, traders say.
In comparison with earths, demand for minor metals is less beholden to China, traders say. For some – such as titanium, rhenium or lithium – Beijing is not even the dominant supplier, with Chile, the US, Congo, Australia and Russia being large producers too. So investor enthusiasm has centred on rare earths over the past two years, fuelled by the mining companies themselves warning of looming shortages. That bubble burst late last year.
Policymakers remain worried, however. Japan is already stockpiling obscure metals. The European Commission is considering a list of “critical” minor metals and an announcement, including measures such as stockpiles, is expected later this year.
With mining industry lobbyists pushing for strategic stocks, the US defence department has discussed creating a similar list. “This is because they [minor metals] have a number of high-tech applications that are important for the economy and because they are marked by a higher degree of supply risk than the more traditional base and ferrous metals,” says the National Academies' report.
In response, some companies that need minor metals and rare earths are supporting exploration and production, in order to diversify their supply base and keep prices low. Toyota Tsusho, an affiliate of the Japanese carmaker, for example this month announced a deal with Australia-based Orocobre to help develop lithium deposits in Argentina. The metal is needed for use in hybrid cars' batteries.
Many traders remain sceptical, arguing that political concerns about so-called “critical” metals are misplaced. They do not foresee worse shortages than for more common commodities such as iron ore.
As Mr Lipmann points out, this is not the first time that policymakers worrying about metal supplies have fumbled their response. He remembers how the US considered tin a critical metal at some point. It even built a stockpile because of fears that communism would spread from the Korean peninsula to important producing nations including Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia.
At its peak in 1972 the stockpile contained 250,000 tonnes of the metal, equal to more than the world's entire annual supply at that time. “The US government then spent the next 30 years trying to get rid of it without disrupting the market,” Mr Lipmann recalls.
Now, the worry is again that governments will commit the same mistake as they seek to limit a national dependency on China for supplies of substances that, while less prosaic than tin, are needed in rather more modest volumes.
http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001031141
没有评论:
发表评论