Can PIIGS fly again? No, that’s not a typographical error. I’m referring to Europe’s PIIGS – Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain - the continent’s sick men.

The aftermath of recession and financial crisis has left them struggling and their travails – particularly those of Greece – have hogged the economic headlines this year. Austerity and high unemployment have left their marks too. But they have also spawned a self-help mentality.

As part of this, our PIIGS are targeting what could be a huge and largely forgotten bounty of natural resources. And they are being helped in their endeavours by a handful of entrepreneurial junior explorers and miners.

Comment – Australia - So much for Australia catching the critical metals wave. Sure, we do have two tungsten producers but the main one is German-owned. Yes, we mine antimony -- well, actually a Canadian company does that for us. There is a tin producer, except that the operation is half Chinese-owned.

Graphite? Well, we're getting there, but slowly. Rare earths? It has been 17 years (at least) since work started on any of the current projects. Vanadium production has -- at last -- begun in Western Australia, but what a saga behind that; the deposit was found in 1982 and production was seemingly all set to go by 1999.

Barry Hearn returns to Alexandra Palace this weekend with his latest sporting spectacle: the World Championship of Ping Pong.

If they think it is all over at the Alexandra Palace now that the PDC World Darts Championship has stepped back from the oche, they had better think again. The staff there may have just de-tacked the carpet, gathered up the Himalayas of empty pint pots and filled the lost-property room with forgotten items of fancy dress (every year several pantomime cow rear ends are left behind in the gents, at least one of which is still occupied). But the king of sporting spectacle will not be abandoning the place anytime soon. Indeed, the man behind the arrows claims things could get messy all over again at Ally Pally.

This weekend Barry Hearn returns to the arena where his tungsten tips have ruled with his latest innovation: the World Championship of Ping Pong. In characteristic style, he insists the event will not be quiet. Via use of laser lighting, a thumping disco beat and – we assume – 8,000 inebriated fans chanting “duh-duh-duh duh duh der-duh-duh-duh” at the end of every rally, he intends to turn the once gentle dining-room pastime of table tennis into an all-action must-watch television event on a par with the arrows.

Galway Metals Inc., a company that holds a 100% interest in the Victorio tungsten-molybdenum project situated in New Mexico, has announced that common shares will be listed and will commence trading on the TSX Venture Exchange effective January 4, 2013, under the symbol “GWM.”

As previously disclosed on December 20, 2012, Galway Metals received conditional approval to list its common shares on the TSX-V in connection with a plan of arrangement (the "Arrangement") among formerly listed Galway Resources Ltd. ("Galway Resources"), AUX Acquisition 2 S.àr.l, AUX Canada Acquisition 2 Inc., Galway Metals and Galway Gold Inc. that closed on December 20, 2012. Galway Metals is well capitalized with US$12 million cash and holds a 100% interest in the Victorio tungsten-molybdenum project in New Mexico formerly held by Galway Resources.

Tungsten disulfide is a semiconductor and in bulk possesses distinct band gaps. Mauricio Terrones' group at Pennsylvania State University in the US, however, have been looking at this material not in bulk, but as a triangular two-dimensional crystal.

The picture behind shows what happens when Terrones' team  made these small crystals – the edges showed an incredible photoluminescence at room temperature (around 25 times stronger than at the centre of the triangle). As the material changes from bulk to monolayer, the interaction between electronic states also changes and the material becomes a direct band gap semiconductor – allowing electrons that move from a higher energy band to a lower band to emit a photon. However, that doesn't in itself explain the boosted luminescence at the edges. That is helped, it seems, by the structure at the edges, involving zig-zag patterns of sulfur atoms, but the overall explanation is still unclear.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has adopted final rules requiring disclosure of the use of "conflict minerals" by public companies (including smaller reporting companies and foreign private issuers) in products they manufacture (or for which they contract the manufacture). If gold, tantalum, tin, or tungsten is "necessary to the functionality or production" of a company's products, the company will be required to file reports annually, on new Form SD, regarding the sources of the mineral. The first report is due May 31, 2014, covering products manufactured in calendar year 2013 (excluding products containing conflict minerals that were outside the supply chain before January 1, 2013).

The rules were adopted pursuant to a provision of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, "intended to further the humanitarian goal of ending the extremely violent conflict in the [Democratic Republic of Congo], which has been partially financed by the exploitation and trade of conflict minerals originating in the DRC." A lawsuit seeking to invalidate the rule has been filed, but it will be some time before the case is resolved.

The rules establish a three-step process for determining the extent of a company's reporting obligations.

Step One: A company must determine whether any conflict mineral was "necessary to the functionality or production" of a product manufactured or contracted for manufacture by the company. Although "necessary to the functionality or production" is not defined, the SEC provides guidance for making the determination. To be necessary to functionality or production, the mineral must be contained in the product, but even trace amounts of a conflict mineral remaining in the product after manufacture, if necessary to its production, will trigger the reporting requirement, although the conflict mineral is not otherwise necessary to the product's functionality.

The company should also consider whether the conflict mineral is added to the product intentionally, or is a naturally occurring by-product, and whether the conflict mineral is necessary to the product's generally expected function. Material used solely for ornamentation on a product that is not itself an ornament is not considered necessary to the product.

Whether a company is considered to "contract the manufacture" of a product depends on the amount of influence the company exercises over the materials or parts used in the product. A company that has only its own name or logo on a generically manufactured product or only repairs or services a product made by a third party would not be considered to contract for the manufacture of that product.

Step Two: If the company manufactured (or contracted for manufacture of) a conflict mineral product, the company must make a reasonable inquiry into the country of origin of the conflict mineral.

The SEC has given little concrete guidance regarding what constitutes a reasonable inquiry. Although the SEC has said that each company's particular facts and circumstances will determine what is reasonable, the inquiry must be reasonably designed to determine the mineral's country of origin and made in good faith. A company may rely on the representations of the facility at which its conflict minerals were processed, if the company has reason to believe the representations are true, e.g., based on a publicly available certification by a recognized industry group that requires an independent private sector audit. The Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition (EICC) and Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI) have instituted a program to identify conflict-free smelters and refiners.

The company must report the results of its inquiry using Form SD. In addition, if as a result of the inquiry, the company knows or has reason to believe that a product contained a conflict mineral that

    originated or may have originated in the DRC or an adjoining country, i.e., Angola, Burundi, Central African Republic, Republic of Congo, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, or Zambia, and

    was not or may not have been from scrap or recycled sources,

the company must proceed in accordance with Step Three.

Step Three: If Step Three is applicable, the company must conduct due diligence regarding the source and chain of custody of the conflict minerals. The due diligence must conform to a nationally or internationally recognized due diligence framework. The only framework cited by the SEC is the OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains of Minerals from Conflict-Affected and High-Risk Areas.

If due diligence establishes that the conflict minerals did not originate in a covered country, the company must disclose the determination and describe the due diligence on Form SD. Otherwise, the company must file a conflict minerals report (CMR) as an exhibit to the Form. The CMR must describe its due diligence efforts, and, if the company is unable to determine its products to be "DRC conflict free," provide information regarding the relevant products, the processing facility, and the mine or location of origin. "DRC conflict free" means a product contains no conflict mineral that directly or indirectly financed or benefited armed groups in the covered countries. The CMR must include an audit by an independent third party regarding the company's compliance with the due diligence framework.

Smaller reporting company reports for the years 2013 through 2016 and reports of other companies for the years 2013 and 2014 may state products to be "DRC conflict undeterminable," subject to alternative informational requirements.

The Form SD must include a link to the company's website where the information in the report also is available.

Tungsten Manufacturer & Supplier: Chinatungsten Online - http://www.chinatungsten.com
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How Could Armored Vehicle be if the Bullet is Tungsten-maded?

Collected by Chinatungsten Online- Federal agents are investigating the peddling of bogus gold bars in Midtown.

The Post has learned as many as 10 fake gold bars — made up mostly of relatively worthless tungsten — were sold recently to unsuspecting dealers in Manhattan’s Midtown Diamond District.

The price of gold has risen more than 600 percent since January 2000, while the S&P 500 index is down 0.6 percent over the same period.

The 10-oz. gold bars are hugely popular with Main Street investors, and it is not known how many of the fake gold bars were sold to dealers — or if any fake bars were purchased by the public.

One gold dealer discovered that four of the 3-inch-by-1-inch gold bars he bought — worth about $72,000 retail — were counterfeit.

“It has the entire street on edge,” said Ibrahim Fadl, 62, who has been the owner of Express Metal Refining, a Midtown gold-refinery business, for the last 11 years. “I and the others on the street work off of trust; now that trust is strained.”

Fadl, a Columbia University graduate with a master’s degree in chemical engineering, and who has more than 40 years in the industry, purchased the four fake bars from a well-known Russian salesman with whom he has done business.

A second 47th Street refiner, who wished to remain anonymous, said he was burned recently when he bought six gold bars that turned out to be mostly tungsten, with just a gold veneer. He would not comment, though, on who sold him the bogus bars.

Fadl became suspicious when he offered the salesman a deep discount for the investment-grade gold bars and he quickly accepted it, a source tells The Post.

Fadl said he did his due diligence “by X-raying the bars to ascertain the purity of the gold and weighing the bars, and the Swiss markings were perfect.”

Tungsten is an industrial metal that weighs nearly the same as gold but costs a little over $1 an ounce. Gold closed Friday at $1,774.80 an ounce.

To quell his suspicion, Fadl then drilled into the bar and discovered the tungsten — whose silver color is distinctive from gold’s bright yellow hue.

Raymond Nassim, CEO of Manfra, Tordell & Brookes, the American arm of the Swiss firm that created the original gold bars — with their serial number and purity rating stamped clearly into them — said he reported the situation to the US Secret Service, whose jurisdiction covers the counterfeiting of gold bars.

He said his company “is supporting and cooperating with authorities any way we can.”

Nassim thought the culprit must be a professionally trained jeweler to have pulled off the caper.

“The forger had to slice the original bar along the side, hollow out the gold and insert the tungsten ingot, and then reseal and polish the bar, Nassim said.

At an industry dinner Thursday night hosted by Comex, the New York-based metals exchange, the room was abuzz with talk about the bogus gold bars, according to Fadl.

Tungsten Manufacturer & Supplier: Chinatungsten Online - http://www.chinatungsten.com
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With the coming of New Year vocation, the atmosphere of wait-and-see becomes stronger. Today, mainstream 65% tungsten concentrate price based on Ganzhou, Hunan focuses on ￥112,000.00-115,000.00/mt, scheelite concentrate quotation based on Hunan is ￥110.000.00-114.000.00/mt. The manufacturers from downstream almost stop enquiry, and some tungsten concentrate suppliers stop quotation either.

From the perspectives of Chinatungsten Online, with increasing rain and snow weather in the Chinese Mainland, no matter upstream or downstream, market activities reduces relatively. Constantly weak price of tungsten concentrate make suppliers lose their confidence that they have to get cash through accepting low transaction prices. It is also hard to improve the situation of imbalance between supply and demand since tungsten suppliers chose to stock up goods in the early days. Chinatungsten Online expects, tungsten products price and tungsten concentrate price will keep steady at the low level and will improve relatively after New Year vocation.

Tungsten Manufacturer & Supplier: Chinatungsten Online - http://www.chinatungsten.com
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The mainstream scrap tungsten price maintains steady. The transaction price excluding tax of domestic blade is ￥171.00-￥174.00/kg; imported blade is ￥181-183/kg; scrap tungsten bit still concentrates on ￥187.00-￥190.00/kg scrap pure tungsten block is ￥208.00-￥213.00/kg.

The price of the content of scrap tungsten grinding material which is more than 70W is ￥1.70 per kilogram tungsten, 50W-70W is ￥1.60 per kilogram tungsten, 30W-40W is ￥1.40 per kilogram tungsten, 10-20W is ￥0.80 per kilogram tungsten while 8W-10W is ￥0.70 per kilogram tungsten, which keep steady constantly.

The trend of downward in tungsten concentrate price becomes obviously, although tungsten suppliers are more willing to ship, real demand seems no improvement relatively. Under the support of short resource, scrap tungsten steel prices has been hold relatively, but small transaction volume has been realized. Scrap tungsten suppliers’ attitude becomes more cautious and more willing to wait and see. Tungsten traders feel no enthusiasm toward the scrap tungsten market, therefore trading operations are in active as well. Chinatungsten Online predicts scrap tungsten prices will keep steady generally but falling feebly.

Tungsten Manufacturer & Supplier: Chinatungsten Online - http://www.chinatungsten.com
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