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German miner Chronimet and America’s Comsup Commodities reveal mystery of
Armenia’s molybdenum mines.
Author: John Helmer
Posted: Tuesday, 30 Oct 2007
Molybdenum is a metal that doesn’t lose its cool.
Used in a variety of alloys for steel, it remains rigid at 3,000 degrees
Fahrenheit, and doesn’t melt until 4,730 degrees F, a point at which
everything but four other natural elements have vaporized and disappeared.
The biggest source of demand for molybdenum alloys is in stainless steel
production, and as this also consumes nickel, the price of molybdenum
usually moves in parallel with nickel. If nickel and stainless steel prices
are rising, so is molybdenum. When they decline, moly follows them down.
At least, that’s the theory.
The reality since mid-May is that nickel has been falling in price from a
peak just short of US$25 per pound. At the same time, molybdenum jumped to
$32/lb in May, then $35/lb in June. It remained at that price until
mid-October, when it fell back a dollar.
Another theory is that–since molybdenum is a vital ingredient in the
manufacture of high-pressure oil and gas pipes, along with containment
vessels for new-generation nuclear reactors–its price will correlate with
rising demand for oil, gas, and uranium. They should drive moly pricing,
even if nickel and stainless steel fail. And there’s more – although the
global supply of molybdenum ore may be plentiful, the capacity to roast the
concentrate into metal is quite constricted. On the way to the moly roaster,
therefore, the market is sensitive to the possibility of shortages.
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