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本帖最后由 rhapsody 于 2009-9-29 20:09 编辑
【中文标题】稀土金属：新的中国综合症
【原文标题】Rare-earth metals: The new China syndrome
【登载媒体】加拿大商务（Canadian Business）杂志2009年10月12日号
【来源地址】http://www.canadianbusiness.com/ ... 0091012_10008_10008
【译者】rhapsody
【声明】本译文供Anti-CNN使用，未经AC或译者许可，谢绝转载，谢谢合作
Few Canadians will admit to hankering for yttrium, terbium or dysprosium; fewer still could tell the differences between them. But among manufacturers that rely on these and other rare-earth metals to build everything from mobile phones to flat-screen televisions, they are vital. And so, when a draft report recently made public by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) indicated that the Chinese government was considering a ban on their export, a furor ensued. For good reason: when it comes to these exotic metals, China is essentially the world’s lone supplier.
很少加拿大人会承认渴求钇、铽或镝；更少人能说清它们的区别。但对于依赖这些（或其他）稀土金属来制造从手机到平板电视等一切东西的制造商而言，它们是不可或缺的。因而，当近期中国工业和信息化部（工信部）公布的一份报告草案显示中国政府在考虑禁止其稀土资源出口时，骚动随之引发。这很自然：谈及这些奇异金属，中国几乎是世界唯一的供应方。
By the time an MIIT official denied any such ban was coming, the report’s release had already heightened fears that China could use its near monopoly to hold the rest of the world hostage, either by keeping supplies to itself or by charging exorbitant prices to buyers elsewhere. Chances are, the only interested parties not upset were rare-earth prospectors in the rest of the world, including several in Canada, who see in China’s monopoly an opportunity to step in and fill the breach.
当工信部官员否认禁止出口的时候，报告的发布已使恐惧情绪加深，害怕中国会利用其近乎垄断的地位来挟持世界其他地区：或是只供应给自己，或是向其他地方的买家索取过高的价钱。在利益相关方中，可能只有稀土勘探者（包括加拿大的几家）不感到担心，而是将中国的垄断视为（自己）入场补缺的一个机会。
For those who have not dusted off their college chemistry textbooks recently, rare-earth metals are a group of 17 elements clustered together at the bottom of the periodic table. Despite their name, most are actually found in relatively high concentrations within the earth’s crust. Yet economically minable deposits are few, and jurisdictions that permit their extraction even fewer.
给近期没有复习大学化学课本的人说明一下，稀土金属是元素周期表底下那一堆连在一起的17种元素。尽管其名字相当晦涩，大部分元素实际上在地球表层是相对高度集中的。然而可以经济开采的矿床很少，判定能采掘出矿产的就更少了。
Each rare earth metal has unique properties, applications and markets. Neodymium and samarium find use in alloys for magnets and lasers, europium in television screens, praseodymium in electric motors, and so on. One common thread is that many are critical ingredients in a broad array of high-tech and green-tech devices, from superconductors to hybrid car batteries to missile guidance systems to wind turbines. Hence, their profound strategic significance.
每种稀土金属都拥有独特的性能、应用和市场。钕和钐可以用在磁或激光材料；铕可以用于电视屏幕；镨可以用于电动机，等等。其共性在于很多稀土金属在众多的高科技和绿色科技领域里都是关键的原料，从超导体到混合动力汽车的电池，从导弹制导系统到风力涡轮机机。因此，稀土金属具有深远的战略重要性。
In 1992, Deng Xiaoping, at the time China’s paramount ruler, said, “There is oil in the Middle East; there is rare earth in China”—foreshadowing his nation’s dominance of the periodic table’s lanthanide series. It began in the 1980s with the opening of an iron mine called Bayan Obo in Inner Mongolia. It produces rare earths as a byproduct, thus at low cost. Bayan Obo’s success came at the expense of Australian and American produers, who saw their market shares collapse. “A lot of the producers outside of China depended on the economics of cerium and lanthanum,” says Gary Billingsley, CEO of a Canadian junior rare-earth company. “By making those readily available and driving the prices down to pennies per kilogram, basically, they put the other operators out of business….I would say it was fairly deliberate.” (Mining ceased at America’s largest rare-earth mine, at Mountain Pass, Calif., in 1998.) According to the U.S. Geological Survey, China accounted for nearly 97% of the 124,000 tonnes produced last year.
1992年，当时中国的最高领导人邓小平说道，“中东有石油，中国有稀土”——预示了其国度在周期表镧系元素上的统治地位。这要追溯到上世纪80年代在内蒙古白云鄂博开铁矿的时候。稀土在那是作为副产品生产出来的，因此生产成本也低。白云鄂博的成功损害了澳大利亚和美国的矿商，导致后者的市场份额暴跌。“中国以外的很多矿商在经济上都要依靠铈和镧”，加里·比林斯利，加拿大一家小型稀土公司的首席执行官说道。“通过大量供应稀土并把价格降低到每千克几分钱，他们使得其他（矿产）经营者都倒闭了……我觉得这在相当程度上蓄意的。”（1998年，位于加州山口区的美国最大稀土矿停止了开采。）根据美国的地理调查，中国去年占到了124000吨（稀土）产出的97%。
The Chinese government is not content, however, simply to feed the world’s addiction. Rather, it began tightening export quotas in 2006, thus retaining more of its reserves for domestic consumption. It now uses this steady supply to woo foreign manufacturing plants, thus securing employment for some of its citizens. Meanwhile, as it’s doing with other commodities, China is also looking abroad to lock up still more of the supply by investing in foreign rare-earth plays, notably in Australia.
尽管如此，中国政府并不单单满足于培养世界对其上瘾般的依赖。反过来，它在2006年开始收紧了出口配额，而把更多的储备留给国内去消费。它现在利用稳定的供给来吸引外国制造厂，由此保障其部分国民的就业。与此同时，正如对其他一些商品所做的那样，中国同样瞄准了国外，通过投资外国稀土厂商（尤其是澳大利亚的）以锁定更多的供给。
China’s predilection for getting high on its own supply has sent other consumers scrambling for alternate suppliers. Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry unveiled its strategy last year. It included securing overseas resources, recycling, stockpiling, and developing alternative materials. Japan’s interest is not surprising: Toyota, for example, needs large quantities of rare-earth metals for its popular hybrid vehicles.
中国偏好将供应留给自己享受已经使得其他国家争夺其他的供应方。日本经济产业省去年出台了自己的战略，包括获取国外资源，回收、囤积和开发替代材料。日本的举动并无惊奇：比如丰田公司，就需要大量的稀土金属来制造其受欢迎的混合动力汽车。
Despite this reality, there are at least a few observers beyond the MIIT who say the latest hysteria is unfounded. “This thing got way out of control early in the game,” says Clint Cox, a rare-earth specialist with the Anchor House. Cox, who obtained a copy of the draft from a confidential source, disputes many of the reported details. One particularly inflammatory release, for example, from Arafura Resources, an Australian uranium and rare-earth exploration firm, said MIIT named yttrium, terbium and dysprosium as candidates for the export ban. Yet according to Cox, yttrium was not even listed in the report.
尽管事实如此，但继（中国）工信部后也至少有几位观察家表态说近期的歇斯底里是毫无根据的。“这件事早些时候有些失控了”，克林特·考克斯，船锚屋公司的一位稀土专家说道。考克斯通过机密渠道得到了一份草案的复印件；他对许多报道的细节提出了质疑。阿拉弗拉资源公司（一家从事铀矿和稀土矿开采的澳大利亚公司）发表的一份特别有煽动性的稿件说工信部有点名提到钇。但根据考克斯的说法，钇甚至没被列入这份报告之中。
It’s certainly easy to see how rare-earth miners would be eager to stoke the controversy. As soon as word of a possible ban spread, just about every one of them with a pulse was issuing press releases in hopes of landing a big investor or, at the very least, a pop in their stock. Those in the spotlight included several Canadian plays. Avalon Rare Metals, for example, owns a rare-metals property at Thor Lake in the Northwest Territories. Ucore Uranium, based in Halifax, has a project in southeastern Alaska. VMS Ventures optioned a uranium and rare-earth property in Manitoba. Billingsley’s company, Great West Mineral Group of Saskatoon, owns the Hoidas Lake project on the northern fringe of Saskatchewan. Each, however, is at a relatively early stage of development. “I wouldn’t say that any of them are close to delivering a salable rare-earth concentrate to the market,” says Cox.
当然，各稀土矿商积极地为这场争论添油加醋的原因是显而易见的。可能禁运的消息一传出来，几乎每家矿商就都迫不及待地发表了新闻稿，希望能够获得大投资者的青睐，或者，也至少能抬高其股价。其中引人瞩目的也包括几家加拿大厂商。例如，在西北地区托尔湖拥有稀有金属矿的阿瓦隆稀有金属公司；坐落于哈利法克斯，在阿拉斯加东南部有（开采）项目的铀核铀矿公司；握有曼尼托巴的铀矿和稀土矿购买权的VMS投资公司；还有比利斯利的公司，在萨斯喀彻温省西北边辉达斯湖有（稀土开采）项目的大西部矿业集团公司。不过，上述这些企业都还处于相对初级的发展阶段。“我不认为这其中有任何一家企业能向市场提供适于销售的稀土精矿”，考克斯说道。
The great unanswered question that may determine their fate is how much of a premium rare-earth junkies are prepared to pay to secure non-Chinese supply—a question that is relevant, accordingly to Billingsley, whether or not China actually bans rare-earth exports. “The fact is that China is consuming more and more of these materials internally, especially as they promote value-added manufacturing within China,” he says. “If the trend continues, there will come a point where it is very likely China will consume everything it produces. That has the same effect as an embargo.”
能够决定它们命运的一个仍无解的大问题在于，有多少对优质稀土成瘾者愿意出钱以获得非中国的供给。在比林斯利看来，不管中国是否真的禁止稀土出口，这个问题都相当重要。“事实上中国国内消耗这些矿产越来越多，尤其是因为他们在国内发展附加值制造业”，他说道，“如果这种趋势持续下去，总有一天中国生产的所有（稀土）矿产很可能都为自己所消耗。而这等效于禁运。”
Billingsley doubts China can preserve its monopoly on rare-earth metals indefinitely. Though he remains concerned that its producers might drive down prices again to eliminate foreign upstarts, he believes China has too much to lose by courting more political controversy. And to assume China’s continued dominance, he says, would be to underestimate the prospecting abilities of Canadians, Australians and others. “I think you could equate it even to back when nobody thought there were any diamonds anywhere else but Africa,” he says. “Once they unleashed the prospectors of the world looking for them, all of a sudden they were everywhere. The same thing could happen with these strategic metals.” For manufacturers outside China, that can’t happen soon enough.
比林斯利怀疑中国能否无限期地保持自己在稀土金属上的垄断地位。虽然他对于中国矿商可能再次压低价格以干掉外国发迹者而忧心忡忡，但他认为中国招致更多政治争议也会损失很多。他觉得，如果认为中国的支配地位会持续下去的话，就是低估了加拿大、美国和其他地区的潜在（生产）能力。“我想你甚至可以把这个（情况）和以前没人认为非洲会有钻石相类比”，他说道，“一旦矿藏引发全世界勘探者去寻找的话，忽然间矿藏就会变得遍地皆是。对于这些战略性金属也可能会发生相同的情况。”对于中国以外的矿商而言，这不会很快发生。 |
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