Undoing the four centuries of Canadas colonialist adventures in the Arctic region. Update on Greenland. Not all Qatars are born from gas. Here comes one made of uranium *** Global power brokers once dismissed Greenland as a white blot on the world map. No longer: Investors from Australia to Canada to China are flocking to the island in the next great contest for mineral riches. And there aren’t many people to stand in their way. Greenland is one of the least densely populated parts of the planet. Its 57,000 inhabitants -- 90 percent are indigenous Greenlandic Inuit -- live scattered across an ice-covered expanse roughly a third the size of Australia. Although Greenlanders won the right to govern their own domestic affairs in 2009, they have yet to realize their aspirations for full independence. Denmark still provides for Greenland’s defense, and the state church and monarchy have retained their official roles. But the greatest source of dependence has always been economic: Greenland still uses the Danish kroner as its currency, and it relies on Danish markets to absorb over 60 percent of its exports and provide almost 65 percent of its imports. To achieve full independence, in other words, Greenland must find new trading partners and have something to trade. Greenland lacks the infrastructure, population, and educational system to otherwise develop its economy; natural resources offer the best chance of progress. ..... Fish constitute 90 percent of Greenland’s exports, and the economy depends heavily on an annual $600 million grant from Denmark. Roderick McIllree, a managing director of Greenland Minerals and Energy Ltd., estimates that mining could raise the country’s present-day GDP of $2 billion by as much as 25 percent. His company has already invested $110 million in Kuannersuit. He is happy to pay royalties and expects to produce revenues for Greenland 50–100 years into the future. Kuannersuit has long been of interest to geologists. It is filled with pretty stones such as the pink tugtupite (“reindeer blood” in Greenlandic) and is home to more than 200 rare minerals, 15 of which cannot be found anywhere else in the world. But these days, all eyes are on the region’s so-called rare earth elements -- raw materials essential to technology products such as cell phones, wind turbines, and hybrid cars. For years, China has held a near monopoly on the global supply, controlling an 85 percent share. (That figure is down from a high of 95 percent a year ago, thanks to U.S. and Australian efforts to start mining their own rare earths.) Kuannersuit contains as much as 10 million tons of such metals and could potentially produce 40,000 tons a year. In total, Greenland could potentially produce upward of 20 to 25 percent of the worlds supply. As it stands, uranium is only a byproduct of the rare earths mining. But it could become the main product if the economics worked out. No one knows exactly how much uranium Greenland has, but estimates suggest that Kuannersuit could contain some 575 million pounds of it. The most bullish analysts predict that Greenland could become the world’s fifth-largest uranium exporter, with the potential to bring in revenues of $20 billion a year. ...... Chinese investment -- and Chinese markets -- will be critical to Greenland’s future as a mining nation, but financial dependency on China brings other concerns. Outside Greenland, many countries are wary of the closer ties to China that mining would bring. Last summer, Chinese President Hu Jintao was the first Chinese head of state to grace Denmark with a visit, one that lasted three days. China is interested not only in Greenland’s resources but also in its strategic position in the Arctic. This summer, it became an observer state on the Arctic Council. China’s Sichuan Xinye Mining Investment Company has already partnered with London Mining to mine Greenland’s iron ore, providing labor and capital for the Isua iron mine near Nuuk. The project could bring $5.9 billion to Greenland over the next 15 years. (By Anna-Katarina Gravgaard) ***
Posted on: Wed, 30 Oct 2013 12:14:27 +0000
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