Word: ores
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...investors in the country. After all, Beijing had effectively dropped the case's most ominous element: the charge that Rio's Stern Hu and his three colleagues had allegedly stolen "state secrets," in part by bribing executives of Chinese steel companies, who are Rio's largest buyers of iron ore. Under a state-secrets charge, the four men faced the prospect of a secret trial and the possibility of lifetime sentences. Now that the government will only charge them with using "improper means" to gain access to commercial secrets - commercial bribery - the executives will have access to legal counsel...
...levels in Beijing" that Rio walked away in June from a $19.5 billion tie-up it had struck late last year with Chinalco, the Chinese state-owned aluminum company. To make matters worse, from Beijing's perspective, Rio then turned around and agreed to a joint venture in iron ore with global rival BHP Billiton. Together the two control about 75% of the world's iron ore, which China's steelmakers consume ravenously. "That deal is China's worst nightmare," says an investment-banking source with close ties to the global mining industry. (See pictures of China's infrastructure boom...
...China's second tack is to prolong negotiations over the contract price of iron ore with the two main suppliers, hoping to wear them down while frantically moving to line up other potential sources beyond Rio and BHP Billiton for next year and beyond. China is the world's largest steel producer, and despite the global recession, its factories are running close to flat-out thanks to enormous infrastructure construction and brisk sales for new autos and apartments. That means it would appear to have little leverage in pursuit of the price cuts on iron ore that it seeks...
...Commerce was just venting after the Chinalco deal failed. But a banking source with close ties to the Australian mining industry says that perception is wrong. "The antitrust review is real, and right now if I had to bet, I'd bet that [the Rio-BHP Billiton iron-ore tie-up] doesn't happen. The Chinese are going to block...
...Contrary to constant press reports in China and abroad, which say the Chinese side of the iron-ore price negotiations are being conducted on Beijing's side by the Chinese Iron and Steel Association, they are, in fact, being run straight out of Premier Wen Jiabao's office. And Wen, says the banking source, has "not been a happy man" since the Chinalco deal fell apart earlier this summer. Don't misread, in other words, the absence of the state-secrets charge against the Rio Four as evidence that the extraordinary face-off between China and one of the world...