1 of what is many ore piles as per other pics-since the 6-13-12 ship departure ore had already been trucked before May 5,2012 - most of it prior to the expected 12-21-11 ship which govt prematurely canceled permits nationwide due to illegal mines-thus was canceled 15 minutes before final ship authorization was signed-and then govt added extra audits which were completed 3-6-12,and after that 6-13-12 ship departure 45000 tons of remained from the ca 90000 tons at port-which shipped May 19 2013 along w "23000 tons other inventory" 5-28-13 PR after CWRN won its suit against the govt for the port games-see 6-25-12 and last PR etc
India was even worse in some respects -their courts blocking all iron exports for some time until the govt could get a handle on illegal mines-thus becoming an importer for a while -see past posted articles here
again,why problem w illegal mines now? because iron was only 10-14/ton til 2002 due to de facto fiat pricing by monopoly buyer China via "negotiations" w 1 big player -and then everybody else would fall in line- I will say the big producers have imo acted very stupidly-the opposite of opec etc cartels-in hurting price
so since that fiat model increasingly broke down after 2002 and prices exploded after 2008 (ca 45/ton) to 192 in Feb 2011,w retrenchment now to ca 135,the profit was so high that many illegal mines sprung up-if they had proper infrastrucure that would take 3 years in most cases-thus the manifestation of their proliferation by 2011 and India and Mex govts harsh methods nationwide
Australia took a different tack-it just levied a 30% export tax May 2012-which caused China to withdraw from some Australian projects,and India increased direct and indirect taxes on such to 40% to offset their lower cost of production
dont know how Chile is dealing w the situation-and the brazilian govts tax etc battles w vale are well known and have been in the brazilian courts for years as Brazil attempts to extract an addtional 15-30 billion in taxes etc from vale and has heavily pressured vale in other ways also-this is what happens when greed controls a species and everybody is trying to get a bigger piece of the pie and govts do what they do best -which is to tax new sources of revenue etc to balance the budget- so this has been a worldwide problem for iron miners
India was even worse in some respects -their courts blocking all iron exports for some time until the govt could get a handle on illegal mines-thus becoming an importer for a while -see past posted articles here
again,why problem w illegal mines now? because iron was only 10-14/ton til 2002 due to de facto fiat pricing by monopoly buyer China via "negotiations" w 1 big player -and then everybody else would fall in line- I will say the big producers have imo acted very stupidly-the opposite of opec etc cartels-in hurting price
so since that fiat model increasingly broke down after 2002 and prices exploded after 2008 (ca 45/ton) to 192 in Feb 2011,w retrenchment now to ca 135,the profit was so high that many illegal mines sprung up-if they had proper infrastrucure that would take 3 years in most cases-thus the manifestation of their proliferation by 2011 and India and Mex govts harsh methods nationwide
Australia took a different tack-it just levied a 30% export tax May 2012-which caused China to withdraw from some Australian projects,and India increased direct and indirect taxes on such to 40% to offset their lower cost of production
dont know how Chile is dealing w the situation-and the brazilian govts tax etc battles w vale are well known and have been in the brazilian courts for years as Brazil attempts to extract an addtional 15-30 billion in taxes etc from vale and has heavily pressured vale in other ways also-this is what happens when greed controls a species and everybody is trying to get a bigger piece of the pie and govts do what they do best -which is to tax new sources of revenue etc to balance the budget- so this has been a worldwide problem for iron miners
