Member Login English Home 中文版 日本語版 BBS Blog
Navigation
Home Page
Prices and Markets
Tungsten Products Price
Molybdenum Products Price
Vanadium Products Price
Titanium Products Price
Cobalt Products Price
Nickel Products Price
Rare-earth Price
Ferro Alloy Price
Tungsten's News
Tungsten's News,International
Tungsten's News,China
Powder Metallurgy Technology
News of Molybdenum
News of Refractory Metals
History of Tungsten
Sports & Tungsten
Military & Tungsten
Environment & Tungsten
Radiation Medical & Tungsten
Marketing of Tungsten
Tungsten Ore
Tungsten Oxides & Trioxides
Tungsten、Carbide Powder
Pure Tungsten
Tungsten Welding Electrodes
Tungsten Heavy Alloy
Tungsten Copper
Tungsten Jewelry
Ferro Tungsten
Tungsten Carbides
Tungsten Alloy Darts
Scrap Tungsten
Tungsten Alloy Bucking Bars
Non-ferrous metals
Molybdenum Related
Nickel Related
Cobalt Related
Vanadium Related
Titanium Related
Rare Earth
Technology of tungsten
Acknowledge of tungsten
Academic of tungsten
Research & Development
Patented Technology
Information Services
Information Offer
Advertising
Translation Services
Agent & Representative
Magazines & Books of tungsten
News of Chatroulette IT & Network
My Nomination for Worst Law of The Year: Dodd Frank on Conflict Minerals
Author:Tungsten products …    Source:China Tungsten Industry Association    Update Time:2012-12-26 9:11:11

My Nomination for Worst Law of The Year: Dodd Frank on Conflict Minerals


COLLECTED BY CHINATUNGSTEN - DEC. 26, 2012 - It’s that time of year, when we look back on the one past and think about how we might make the next one better. And thus my nomination for the worst law of the past year. That’s the Dodd Frank regulations on the disclosure of the use of conflict minerals. Obviously, this will be controversial: and I most certainly don’t mean that there weren’t worse laws out there either. Rather, that a certain amount of professional expertise in this field leads me to the conclusion that this was indeed a very bad law. For it simply doesn’t achieve the outcome that its proposers were hoping for. Others with other fields of knowledge might well be able to top this one.

 

It’s worth going back a little. The Eastern Congo has been a vile slaughterhouse for near a decade now. Various gangs, militias and armies have roared back and forth across the landscape killing and raping as they go. The Eastern Congo is also home to extremely rich concentrations of certain minerals. And those minerals are also mineable with the most basic of technologies. Little more than human labour and a pickaxe is required for some of them.

 

This combination has led to those very same gangs and militias enslaving people to mine those minerals. The money raised being used to purchase the arms to pursue whatever the aims are: usually, to enslave more people to dig more minerals.

That this isn’t a desirable state of affairs should be obvious. Thus moves, largely driven by two NGOs, Global Witness and the Enough Project, to do something about this. And no one can deny that doing something would be a good idea. So full marks to the two organisations so far. However, it’s the actual implementation of the rules which I fear is at fault, not the intentions behind them. For the rules that have actually emerged make absolutely no difference at all to the particular problem that was used as the poster child to get the law passed.

 

For what we were told, the poster child for the cause, was that the mining of “coltan” (it’s actually columbo- tantalite but let that pass) to make our mobile phones was what was firing, contributing, to this violence and enslavement. Which could even have been true. But the laws that have emerged make no difference to this at all. There has indeed been a difference made: but not by these laws.

 

A little technical point. That “coltan” is used as the source of tantalum. About 8% or so of the world’s supply comes from this Central African region. Some portion of that (by no means all, nor even a majority) comes from those slave mines. The aim is to allow the continued operation of the non-slave mines while closing down the oppressive ones.

 

Tantalum itself is used to make the capacitors which go into electronic equipment. Our mobile phones, X-boxes, TVs and all the rest all use such tantalum capacitors. Global output is around some 100 billion pieces a year.

 

There were two conflicting visions of how this closing of the bad mines could be achieved. There were those like myself, who understood the industry, who pointed out that there are only a handful of factories that can process coltan into tantalum. Cabot in Germany, Starck in Germany, Ulba in Kazakhstan, a handful in China: maybe a couple of others but not many. We also have the ability to check where a particular consignment of coltan comes from: we have a database of the residual elements typical of each known mine and can thus check material, as with a fingerprint. To keep those slave mines out of the supply chain is therefore quite simple. Ensure that there is an inspector at the receiving dock of each of those less than a dozen processors and check each shipment as it comes in.

 

This is a reasonably cheap system, is effective, would work and so on.

 

That, however, is not the system that the law has mandated. Rather, the regulations under Dodd Frank insist that each consumer electronics company must detail whether it is using “conflict minerals” or not. Or rather, if it’s using minerals from Central Africa, whether it has checked that they are or are not conflict minerals.

 

This is obviously less efficient. We’re asking Apple, Samsung, HTC, Ericsson and the entire mess of other firms to go back and check their entire supply line. Instead of concentrating on that chokepoint of those few processors. So it’s not a good idea in the first place.

 

But then comes the really bad idea:

 

    A company is considered to be “contracting to manufacture” a product if it has some actual influence over the manufacturing of that product. This determination is based on facts and circumstances, taking into account the degree of influence a company exercises over the product’s manufacturing.

    A company is not be deemed to have influence over the manufacturing if it merely: affixes its brand, marks, logo, or label to a generic product manufactured by a third party.

 

For an electronics manufacturer (or any other manufacturer of any type at all) to have to label or monitor its supply chain it must actually be manufacturing. If you’re just buying off the shelf parts from someone else and assembling them then you don’t have to. You can just ignore the whole problem. And you don’t even have to check the supply chain of the people you’re buying the already made part from.

 

Which is where we get to the technical part of what a capacitor is. Which is an off the shelf part, not something that the electronics manufacturers themselves produce. They’re something they buy, by the tens of millions, then assemble. Thus the electronics assemblers, the Apples, the Ericssons, they’re not actually covered by Dodd Frank at all. Not for tantalum, anyway.

 

And the same will be true of the other metals on the list. Tungsten, tin and gold are also covered. But all of these, by the time they get to electronics, will be absolutely standard off the shelf components. Like solder perhaps, or simple gold bars for plating: these are simply not things that are being manufactured in the sense the law requires by those electronics companies.

 

So I’ve two rather contradictory complaints here. The first being that the law tries to set up a more complex than necessary system. Whereby we consumers put pressure on the electronics companies to avoid conflict minerals: that pressure coming from the fact that they must tell us if they use them. But the law itself then exempts the electronics companies because they don’t in fact have to tell us. Because they are not manufacturers according to the definitions of the law.

 

This is simply an extremely bad law.

 

We’re fortunate though in that despite the stupidity of the law something has been done. The EICC/GeSI initiative. Which has done what all of us in the industry said should have been done anyway. Concentrate on those few smelters, make sure they won’t take slave mined material, and the problem is solved. And as far as such problems can be solved, it is.

 

Which is really why the Dodd Frank regulations on conflict minerals get my nomination as the worst law of this year just passing. They set up and expensive and unwieldy system of regulation. Then provided a massive loophole through which all of the target companies could dive. In an attempt to solve a problem in a legislative manner when that very problem had already been solved by voluntary industry cooperation.

 

It’s possible there are worse laws out there this year. Your nominations will of course be accepted in the comments. But I concentrate on this one as it’s one that I recognise has gone wrong because I actually know this industry, in a manner that allows me to see why it has gone wrong.

 


If you need any more details of the above news and/or products, please visit Chinatungsten Online, or contact us directly.
Disclaimer: The article is only reflecting the opinions of the author. We have no responsibility to prove the originality and authenticity of the content, words and/or pictures. You readers should just take it as reference and check the details by yourselves. And the content is not a suggestion for investment decision. The investor takes his or her own risks if he or she operates accordingly. If you have any dissent about the contents above, please contact the relevant author, or the webmaster. We will try our best to assist the dealing of the related issues. Thanks for your visit and cooperation.

ArticleInputer:xubin    Editor:xubin 
  • Back itemArticle:

  • Next itemArticle: No
  • 【Font:Small Large】【Comment】【Add favorite】【Mail this page】【Print】【Close
    Links
    China Tungsten Online Molybdenum Tungsten Wire Tungsten Bars/Rods Tungsten Bucking Bar
    Tungsten Carbides Tungsten Heater Pure Tungsten Tungsten Carbide & Alloy Tungsten Paper weight
    Tungsten Heavy Alloy Tungsten Powder China Dart Wiki of WMo Infosys
    Darts Shop Online Xatcm Tungsten Copper Alloy Metal Pricing Tungsten Carbide Jewelry
    Tungsten Alloy Fishing Sinker Darts Forum Xiamen Tungsten Tungsten Directory Link Exchange

    Add to FavoriteAbout CTIAContact UsMore LinksRecruitmentBusiness

    Address: 3F, No.25 WH Rd, the 2nd Xiamen Software Park, FJ 361008,China
    Phone:+86 592-5129696,+86 592-5129595;Fax:+86 592-5129797
    Sponsors: China Tungsten Industry Association,Chinatungsten Online
     Certified by MIIT:闽B2-20090025 闽ICP备05002525号
    Copyright © 2000 - 2009 Chinatungsten Online All Rights Reserved