“The market is watching out for Chinese imports and stockpiles data and these will drive sentiment in the days ahead,” Jia Zheng, analyst at Southwest Futures Co., said yesterday.

“There is talk that around 100,000 tons of copper is making its way to LME warehouses in Asia in the next three weeks, and that is weighing a bit on sentiment,” said Jia.

China is expected to release preliminary trade data today or Monday, while weekly inventory data will be released by the Shanghai Futures Exchange after the market closes today.

In company specific news, BHP Billiton (NYSE:BHP), the world’s largest mining company, will begin a study for the potential sale of its Ravensthorpe nickel operations in Australia after closing the $2.2 billion project in January.

“BHP Billiton has received numerous expressions of interest from third parties regarding a possible acquisition of Ravensthorpe and will further test the market through this process,” the company said. BHP intends to finish an options study on the future of Ravensthorpe by December 2009.

BHP closed the Ravensthorpe nickel mine in Western Australia after nickel prices plunged. It sold the Yabulu nickel refinery in Queensland earlier this month to Australian billionaire Clive Palmer for an undisclosed sum.

It’s also worth noting that a Chinese firm started work on a copper deposit in Afghanistan yesterday as part of a multi-billion dollar project and the first major foreign investment of its kind in the country’s history.

State-owned China Metallurgical Group Corp (CMGC) and China’s top integrated copper producer Jiangxi Copper Co won a 2008 tender to explore and develop the vast Aynak Copper Mine south of the capital Kabul.

Aynak is thought to contain up to 13 million tonnes of copper and is regarded as one of the major ore bodies in the world.

The deposit was discovered in 1974 and surveyed by Soviet geologists in 1979, but has never been developed until now.

Source: Base Metals Listless

Focusing on companies with plenty of cash, top management, and proven assets, those that made the grade have paid off handsomely. The chart shows the performance of a basket of such companies as recommended in the December issue of the International Speculator, compared to the TSX (a proxy for mining companies), the TSX Venture (a proxy for junior mining companies), and gold.
Although the International Speculator’s portfolio was not spared from the storm, the fact remains that some of the best junior mining companies have been grossly oversold in today’s irrational markets. Let the International Speculator show you how to seize this special situation for exceptional profits. Take advantage of our 3-month trial subscription with 100% money-back guarantee. Click here for details.

Source: Precious Metal Bargain Hunting

Nickel had a good day, falling from $10.50 in the pre-dawn hours but getting almost all the way back before closing at $10.475/lb., up 14 1/3 cents. Zinc spun its wheels, ending at $0.8612/lb., down a half-cent. Aluminum was modestly higher, adding less than a half-cent, to $1.3184/lb., while lead was pummeled, plunging to its intraday low of $0.8393/lb., down better than 3½ cents.

Though it was up for the first time this week, copper had a pretty unimpressive day, considering the action in the precious metals and energy markets, and that the Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index increased as much as 2.7%. Traders cited concerns that Chinese demand won’t be able to make up for declining US needs.

China’s imports of unwrought copper and semi-finished products fell 19.2% in May as compared with April. They were also off 9.8% in May, year over year.

Analysts expect that Chinese refined copper imports data, due at the end of the month, will show a drop of more than 6% from April to May as demand growth slows and domestic output ramps up.

Tighter monetary policies in the country are also likely to affect demand prospects. China’s central bank has raised the amount that lenders must hold in reserve by a full percentage point, suggesting authorities are anxious to hold down inflation that could develop as reconstruction work after last month’s earthquake begins.

On the supply side, inventories monitored by the LME rose 725 metric tons, to 121,275 tons, on Wednesday.

Protesters yesterday blocked roads leading into Southern Copper’s Ilo smelter and Cuajone mine in Peru, as mining companies throughout the country face escalating demands from workers and local communities.

Meanwhile, Freeport-McMoRan said output at its Peruvian copper pit Cerro Verde was as yet unaffected despite workers having gone out on strike over a contract dispute on Tuesday.

Source: Base Metals Remain Stagnant

Recently I’ve been telling my readers about an incredible deal that had just been signed between China and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. For those of you who are new… I’ll give you a quick reminder…

Congo is one of the most mineral-rich places on earth. Africa’s biggest country is said to hold just about every mineral know to man – gold, copper, diamonds, uranium…

In April this year the Chinese sealed an agreement with the Congo government that is going to see China invest $9 billion dollars in reviving Congo’s war-ravaged infrastructure and mines.

In return they will get access to the African giant’s vast mineral wealth. About $3 billion of that is going to be invested in reviving the mines. But a massive $6 billion is going to be spent on building desperately needed infrastructure. China is going to build about 2,400 miles of new roads, 2,000 miles of railway, 32 hospitals, 145 health centres and two universities.

There are only about 3000 miles of roads in the whole Congo at the moment. So the impact on the country is going to be huge…

In return, China is going to get access to some 10.62 million tonnes of copper and 620,000 tonnes of cobalt. That could add-up to more than $42 billion in profit for the Chinese in the coming years.

The sheer size of the deal has completely blown away China’s rivals. Western mining companies and governments have been left reeling as China appears to have locked-up some of the most valuable mineral deposits in the world. And they aren’t very happy…

What are the Chinese up to?

Last week, Hong Kong’s respected South China Morning Post newspaper, carried an article on the deal. I’m going to quote it at length here, because I think it’s an excellent window into how the Chinese actually view their move into Africa:

“Poor Congo! It can never get a break from meddling westerners. But what can it expect, since it is doing a multibillion-dollar deal with China.”

“Worse, this deal, estimated to be worth US$9.25 billion, involves valuable natural resources and will entrench China, for years, in the affairs of a key African country as big as Western Europe. And, as with many similar massive investment schemes across the continent, it is pitting China investors against western institutional lending and aid bureaucrats and mining companies.”

True enough. And the simple fact is that most western companies just aren’t going to have the resources to go head-to-head with the Chinese government in the scramble for Africa. One of our current plays has done just the opposite. It’s providing the infrastructure and support-services that are going to be necessary for the multinationals and Chinese state-owned giants to get their loot out of Africa… find out more about this play here…

The article goes on…
“Sure, there is no guarantee China will deliver. But even if they deliver just half of what they promise, it will benefit the country enormously, which hitherto has been more newsworthy in the west for civil wars and exotic diseases like Ebola.”

“China is taking on enormous risks with the deal. The tonnes of resources sound good on paper, but some of Congo’s mines and concessions are underdeveloped and dangerous to operate; others remain to be explored and developed. The technical and operational challenges are great.

“No western government or corporation would commit so much capital resources in a single enterprise because, as one analyst said of western investments in the continent in general, they mistake their own ignorance and prejudice for risk assessment.

“So, here is a potentially good deal for Congo, and the International Monetary Fund is unhappy. Likewise some western mining companies, which signed dozens of contracts with the country during the last civil war. The chickens are coming home to roost for the companies in the latest sorry attempt at exploitation by the west.”

What he means by that is that many of the small mining exploration companies that entered the country during the Civil War in late 1990’s are now seeing their contracts being cancelled. A lot of these contracts were one-sided deals which left the Congo government holding the short end of the stick. With the support of their powerful new Asian friend, these small American and European companies are now being forced out. And here’s the Post’s rhetorical flourish at the end:

“China is offering real economic growth and opportunity to sub-Saharan Africa, something the west has never done. Poor countries need all the help they can get, from whatever sources they choose.”

The ONE company that can beat the Chinese at their own game…

Why am I revisiting the Congo today? Because when I first wrote about China’s investment deal with the country early last month, I mentioned that we were looking at several investment opportunities in that country…

And we have found one. In fact, if I’m right about it, it’s going to offer the sort of profits that make China’s deal with the Congo look small…

You see, earlier this year, a group of shadowy tycoons who operate in Africa struck a deal that gives them access to the Congo’s richest mines…the sort of thing that the Chinese can only dream about. They’ve got all the right connections and they’ve got the cash to pull it off. And our latest recommendation is going to put you right in the thick of it.

Source: Secret Deals, Africa’s Richest Mines

So if the world’s major gold companies can’t find any new gold deposits in the ground, they’ll have to find them in the stock market…by buying companies that already possess proven reserves.

Therefore, forward-looking investors might want to take advantage of the current weakness in the gold share market to invest in some of the small mining companies that would be attractive takeover targets.

One of the most intriguing aspects of the current market is the dearth of major discoveries so far in this cycle. This despite record amounts of money spent on exploration since this bull market began in 2001.

Older and smarter minds than mine had predicted that the soaring price of gold would produce a new wave of exploration that would, eventually, produce a new wave of major discoveries.

But so far, as Barrick Gold’s CEO, Peter Munk, recently observed, “There have been virtually no new discoveries.” Only Aurelian (ARU: TSX) has landed a legitimate “elephant” deposit bagged. Unfortunately, the carcass of that particular elephant rests entirely within the sketchy outlines of the nation of Ecuador where the locals are currently circling like a pack of hungry hyenas.

It has been our contention that what was needed to light the fuse on the junior exploration stocks would be, in no specific order:

1. Sustained higher gold prices.

2. Improving financials and free cash flow of the major producers.

3. A discovery to heat the blood of the investing community.

So far, we have had (1) and we are beginning to see (2), but (3) has proved remarkably elusive.

Now, don’t misunderstand. You can have a whopper of a bull market in these stocks without the discovery — that was the case in the 1970s bull market. But a discovery that fires the imagination can jump-start things in a big way, no question about it.

Too bad nobody has found one recently.

In short, we appear to have reached the era of Peak Gold. Whereas a major discovery used to be 10 million ounces or more, the threshold for attention-getting discoveries these days has fallen to more along the lines of 1-3 million ounces…and even those are hardly falling off the trees.

Viewed from the perspective of an investor in the junior resource sector, this lack of discoveries means the fuse is lit — starting with straight-up supply and demand fundamentals — for a rocket shot tomorrow. Adding boosters to the rocket, we have a commodities bull market that shows no sign of ending anytime soon and, while the U.S. dollar will periodically rebound, it is not going to somehow reinvent itself as sound money in our lifetime.

Importantly, as you can clearly read between the lines in Chairman Munk’s words, once the majors get cashed up and get serious about replacing their reserves, they are going to have to look downstream to the juniors with discoveries…even if those discoveries are below the five-million-ounce threshold they previously required to even consider taking an ore body into production.

Of course, lowering the threshold on deposit size will require trade-offs. For example, in order to be considered for an acquisition, a smaller deposit will almost certainly have to be near surface and open-pittable. It will also have to be near good infrastructure, and located in a jurisdiction with good laws and reasonable taxation. There is, in this situation, an opportunity and a risk.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~Special~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Next Bear Stearns

The horrible financial practices that have already taken down some top investment banks were not as rare as we may have hoped. In fact, shoddy bookkeeping and risky business maneuvers were being used in several financial institutions.

Now the next victim is about to be claimed. Which financial giant is going down next? Click here to find out…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Starting with the latter, if your portfolio now includes companies going after deposits in the one- to five-million-ounce range, you need to make sure they are not in a remote location that would require a massive infrastructure investment.

As for the opportunity, while the odds and the amount of exploration spending still favor that we’ll see the discovery of at least one and maybe two monster deposits in this cycle (there are a couple of companies advancing projects with that potential), and early shareholders will make fortunes as a result, there has rarely been a better time to invest in junior exploration companies with modestly sized projects in good locations. That said, you should still be focusing only on projects with at least two million ounces, or the strong potential of same.

In other words, take the opportunity in these down markets to invest in the kinds of junior mining companies that major mining company might want to acquire… That’s where the big money will be made as the gold market gathers steam again.

Regards,
David Galland, Casey Research

Greg’s Endnote: If the falling dollar wasn’t enough to send the price of gold ever-higher, the idea of its relative scarcity certainly will. And what happens when the idea of peak gold hits the mainstream? Can $2,000 gold be that far behind? I don’t think so. Click here to see just why gold could soon be doubling in price…

Source: Where There’s Gold

Q: Any new comments on the refiners? – C.

Record high oil prices are brutalizing refiners. They can’t pass along the rising costs to consumers, so the companies’ margins are down to whiskers.

In April, I thought things couldn’t get worse. The price of a barrel of oil cost more than the amount of gasoline you can make from it. It didn’t make sense… It was like a bushel of wheat becoming more expensive than the bread you could make from it.

But that’s exactly what happened two months ago. So I figured gas prices had to rise, increasing the refiners’ margins, and jacking up their share prices. But since then, the price of oil has risen faster than the price of gasoline. The “crack spread” – the difference between the cost of oil and the price of gas or diesel – has worsened, and refining stocks have fallen further.

I was too early, but the situation still looks good for big gains… when and if the price of oil declines. If you own refiners, keep holding with an eye on your stops.

Q: I hear the same argument for natural resources as for agriculture – short-term peaks and long-term demand. What’s a short-term versus long-term strategy? – R.A.

I look at the long-term argument for agriculture investment as a function of population and modernization. The world has more people living better, and many of those people want to live like Westerners. That means eating more beef, chicken, and pork, which in turn takes a whole lot more soybeans and corn. So agriculture will continue to rise in the long run.

In the short term, agricultural stocks will face the same ebbs and flows of any market. And right now, I think we’re seeing a short-term peak.

Look at the current situation in fertilizer stocks, for example. Intrepid Potash (IPI) trades for more than 100 times earnings. Potash Corp (POT) trades for more than 40 times earnings.

These are mining companies… They usually trade at a discount to the overall market (which has a P/E of 18). How do you expect to make money as in investor when you are buying a depleting asset at 40 times its current earnings?

My inclination is to stay away from these stocks at these valuations. I’m sure you can find a few gems out there, but the big, easy money in most ag stocks has been made.

Q: What’s going on with copper? Is it too late to buy copper producers? – L.M.

Copper is a critical component of housing, cars, air conditioners, plumbing, and electricity transmission. If you don’t have copper, you don’t have modern civilization. So copper prices, much more so than gold and silver, reflect the health of the global economy…

From 2000 to 2007, the world’s copper production grew 14%. Global demand has risen at a steady 4% a year for the last 100 years, but Chinese demand for copper doubled between 2001 and 2007.

In fact, from 2000 to today, China’s growing demand for copper has accounted for 99% of the global growth in copper consumption.

China holds 16% of the world’s copper-smelting capacity, so turning copper ores into copper pipe is clearly a major industry in China. But very little of that finished copper leaves the country. Of all the raw copper China imported in 2006, it exported about 26% of it as finished goods. In 2007, that number dropped to 9%. This year (through March), China only exported about 3% of that copper. That means domestic demand for finished copper is growing.

In other words, China is solely responsible for the rising copper price. At $3.75 per pound, copper is trading near all-time highs… up roughly 400% in the last five years.

I know you don’t read Growth Stock Wire for my analysis of China’s economy… And I’m not going to try to guess what the suits at Goldman Sachs have trouble guessing. I’ll just say I believe copper prices are going to remain high enough for us to make terrific gains in base-metal producers.

Good investing,

Matt

Editor’s note: Natural-resource expert Matt Badiali answers reader questions every Wednesday in Growth Stock Wire. If you’ve got a question for the Commodity Investor, drop us a line.

Source: The Commodity Investor Q&A

The chart you’re looking at compares the South African rand’s performance (versus the U.S. dollar) and the iShares MSCI South Africa ETF (EZA). This is what’s called an inverse correlation. When the rand becomes inflated, South African companies don’t perform well.

The opposite is also true: When the rand gains in strength versus the U.S. dollar, South African companies perform better.

Over the past couple months we’ve seen exactly that. The interesting thing is South Africa is in the midst of a power crisis. In fact, many of its mining companies are scared they won’t have enough power to produce things like gold and platinum.

With aging power plants and failing infrastructure, South Africa needs an injection of investment cash into its power sector. And while its economy technically maintains a budget surplus, it’s constantly battling things like unemployment and poverty.

In short, a commodities bull run, with gold and platinum prices soaring, won’t mean much to the resource-rich country if it doesn’t have the power to produce them — or if the workers wage strikes against low wages and immigrant workers.

My take? Without some positive news on the situation soon, expect the EZA to drop back, and the rand to inflate a bit more. Here’s some numbers: EZA could drop to $110 and the rand versus the U.S. dollar could fall to a ratio of 7:1.

S.R. Nunnally

Editor, Taipan Trader

P.S. The US dollar has been rising in India and Pakistan, too… So sharply that one might expect a bit of a backlash here. Check out the chart, and see for yourself.

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Source: The Dollar IS Rising… In South Africa, That Is

In the U.S., gold majors like Newmont and AngloGold are widely held and fully valued. Australian mining giant BHP Billiton is now a regular holding of big mutual funds. Most people can look at their electric bill and realize the prices of coal and natural gas have soared in recent years. Share prices of the big coal and natural gas producers have climbed in response.

In other words, after years of commodities climbing in price, everyone wants to own them. That’s what makes the story of the Pilbara so amazing…

The Pilbara region of western Australia looks a lot like stretches of Utah… burnt oranges and reds highlighted by spinifex, a bushy grass unique to Australia. But the special thing about this place from an investor’s perspective is this: The Pilbara is home to the world’s single largest deposit of high-grade iron ore… more than 34,000 million tonnes of it. It’s enough to supply the entire world, at current rates of demand, for the next 300 years… and it’s enough to turn the Pilbara into ground zero in the world’s commodity boom.

For years, big mining companies like BHP and Rio Tinto had a lock on the Pilbara’s richest deposits. But not all of them.

The slightly lower-grade ores elsewhere in the Pilbara, or the ones that were simply too far away from BHP’s and Rio’s existing rail and port networks, were left untouched. Now, though, with contract iron ore prices up 320% since 2003 (by comparison, gold is up “just” 147%), it’s a whole different story in the Pilbara.

These days we focus a lot on the importance of energy to our comfortable way of life. But the industrial skeleton on which the infrastructure of a modern economy rests is made of iron and steel. Nations that have it become great. Nations that don’t have it will do just about anything to get it.

Right now, China is doing anything to get it.

China has gone from being a net importer of steel to a net exporter in the last six years. According to the China Iron and Steel Association, China produced 151 million tonnes of steel in 2001. This year, China is on track to produce nearly 540 million tonnes of steel, a 205% increase in six years. China is now the world’s largest steel producer… with an output over three times larger than No. 2, Japan.

To produce steel, you need iron ore. Australia is home to 16% of the world’s iron ore reserves.

China imported 115 million tonnes of Australian iron ore in 2002, 148 million in 2003, and 208 million in 2004. It imported more than 240 million tonnes in 2005, 326 million in 2006, 384 million in 2007, and is on pace to import nearly 453 million tonnes this year. Those imports amount to more than 42% of global iron ore exports.

China needs all that ore to make all that steel because its economy is still rocketing along at 11% growth, according to the latest figures. You can never quite trust government figures, of course. It could be more. It could be less. But either way, it’s a lot… and it’s making Australian miners a fortune right now.

As we enter 2008, Australia is exporting iron ore, coal, gold, and other commodities to the tune of A$117 billion in earnings, according to the Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics (ABARE). ABARE projects export earnings of A$20.2 billion for iron ore producers alone.

Just how big those earnings will actually be depends on the new contract price for iron ore in 2008. Right now, there isn’t a new contract price between Aussie ore companies and Chinese steel makers. In late February, China’s biggest producer, Baosteel, agreed to a 71% increase with Brazilian ore giant Vale.

But Chinese steel producers are stubbornly holding out against the even bigger increase Aussie producers are asking for. The Australians want at least an 85% increase and want to include a “freight premium” that reflects the lower cost of shipping Aussie ore to China.

The clock is ticking… An 85% increase over last year’s contract price of $83.40 a tonne would put the 2008 price at $154.29, about 14% higher than the $132.20 Baosteel agreed to pay Vale. If no agreement is reached by the end of June, Aussie firms are free to sell iron ore in the spot market, where Indian ore has traded between $120 and $150 over the last six months.

This is great news for the Pilbara and its junior iron ore stocks. In fact, the anticipation of higher iron ore prices and Chinese demand has already pushed some iron ore juniors up on the year. The third major player in the Pilbara, Fortescue Metals, is up 60% year-to-date and is a prime buyout target for Chinese investors. Midwest Corporation is up 30% and may soon become the first Australian company to fall to a hostile Chinese takeover.

It’s not just big miners like BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto that stand to profit from the bull market in steel. With or without a new contract price by June 30, a whole new gang of junior ore stocks will benefit from a market that just keeps getting bigger… and for investors, better.

Good investing,

Dan Denning

P.S. You don’t get many chances in life to participate in a full-blown mining boom… where the gains regularly reach hundreds of percent. It’s especially rare to participate in one that’s totally unknown by the majority of American investors. Right now, one is taking place in Australia. Click here to learn more about the best way to participate.

Source: The Last Secret Left in the Mining Industry 

In fact, rumors that BHP may increase its bid have brought about even more speculation that China’s largest steelmakers will further enter the fray.

Rio Tinto Group, the world’s third-largest mining company, rose in London trading yesterday (Tuesday) on speculation BHP Billiton Ltd. will increase its $179 billion hostile bid for the company.

“The rumor doing the rounds is that BHP will increase its bid to 3.8 shares for each Rio share,” Manoj Ladwa, a derivatives broker at TradIndex in London, told Bloomberg News.

Rio Chief Executive Officer Tom Albanese rejected BHP’s initial $127 billion offer saying it “significantly undervalued Rio Tinto and its prospects.” Albanese also said the bid, which offered three shares of BHP for every one share of Rio, was not just out of the ballpark, but “several ballparks away” from being an accurate appraisal. A second offer of 3.4 BHP shares per share of Rio Tinto was also rejected.

BHP has refused to comment on the rumors, but it’s not too great a stretch to imagine another bid might be on its way. That’s because the one thing the world’s second and third largest mining companies can agree on is that Asian markets should be paying more for their iron ore.

Both Rio and rival BHP Billiton are believed to be pushing for an 85% increase in 2008-2009 benchmark iron ore prices, despite the 65% to 71% rise agreed to by Brazilian mining rival Vale (RIO).

The two Aussie juggernauts believe their proximity to Asian markets gives them greater leverage to charge higher prices.

“Rio Tinto will continue to negotiate to obtain a freight premium, to reflect its proximity to Asia and its major customers,” Sam Walsh, Rio’s chief executive of iron ore projects said in February.

Freight accounts for 30% of the landed cost of Australian iron ore in China, but close to 50% of Brazilin iron ore. China, the world’s largest steel producer and consumer, imported 383 million metric tons of iron ore in 2007, up 56.8 million tons, or 17.4%, from the previous year, the China Iron and Steel Association reported.

China’s Chess Game

China is perhaps most affected by the increase in iron ore prices. The country produces about a third of the world’s steel and the vast majority of that output is being used to build the foundation of what will one day become the world’s premier economic power. A boom in commodities prices that has caused the spot price of iron ore to triple in the past five years threatens to derail the country’s fast track development.

However, the only thing that scares Beijing more than soaring ore prices is the prospect that BHP and Rio will team up to ensure that high metal prices are supported well into the future, and perhaps through the duration of China’s economic and industrial expansion.

So far, Xiao Yaqing, chief executive of Aluminum Corp. of China (ACH), otherwise known as Chalco, has given the strongest indication that the state-backed Chinese company is uneasy about the prospect of BHP and Rio forming an ironclad alliance.

“A firm that owns too many resources is not good for the world,” he said in an interview with Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post. “People do not want to see a company dominate the market in any industry.”

Earlier this year, Chalco and Alcoa Inc. (AA), the U.S. aluminum company, bought a 9% stake in Rio Tinto Group for $14 billion. The move turned the duo into Rio’s single largest shareholder, ensuring BHP would have to obtain a 50.1% stake in the company to complete its takeover.

Last month, Sinosteel Corp., China’s second-largest iron ore trader, won over Midwest Corp. by raising its takeover bid to $1.3 billion. Sinosteel has also acquired a 2.4% stake in Murchison Metals Ltd., a rival iron ore producer to Midwest.

Few believe that Chinese companies will stop there, however. The Australian newspaper reported Monday that China’s three largest steel firms – Sinosteel, Chinalco and Baosteel Group Corp.- were looking at a 16% stake in Fortescue Metals Group Ltd., that Harbinger Capital Partners is considering selling. Fortescue is Australia’s third largest iron ore producer behind BHP and Rio Tinto.

“Harbinger chief executive Philip Falcone has been regularly contacted by many Chinese and European companies, particularly in recent weeks,” the paper said. “But because of federal Government concerns about the level of foreign investment, any sale to the Chinese will probably be for only about half of the Harbinger stake.”

Even Marius Kloppers, chief executive of embattled BHP Billiton, thinks a stake in his company will soon fall into Chinese hands.

“Various parts of China that have got surplus funds, capital to deploy, are deploying that across a wide range of things in the world,” he said at an investor briefing. “I have no doubt that one day we will see them show up on our register.”

Source: Iron Ore Proves to be the Most Coveted Commodity in the Pacific