China copper smelters plan to cut output after margins fall
The output cuts underscore the industry’s struggle with a shortage of feedstocks caused by recent mine production setbacks.
Earlier this week Forbes wrote about the fall-out from a Chinese coal boss who threw a $11.1 million (70 million yuan) wedding reception for his daughter:
In the 1980s U.S. movie “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” Sissy Spacek portrays Loretta Lynn, the country girl who sang her way from poverty to fame. In China these days, if you’re a daughter in one of the country’s growing numbers of well-off coal mining families, a big part of life involves managing the risks you bear in getting your clan in a heap of trouble owing the country’s huge rich-poor divide.
The lavish wedding has become quite a talking point in China and the father – Liansheng Group Chairman Xing Libin – now stands accused of using nefarious tactics to obtain his wealth by taking control of a state-owned coal mine on the cheap.
China Money reports that after starting out leasing a small rural coal mine in one of China’s poorest provinces Shanxi, Xing Libin somehow managed to pay only the equivalent of $0.06 (6 US cents) per tonne for the 1.5 billion tonne resource at the LiuLin County Xingwu coal mine.
The blog calls what he paid for the assets that turned him into a multi-millionaire “cabbage money”. Forbes puts his wealth at roughly $700 million placing his family at number 244 on the list of richest mainland Chinese.
None of these allegations are verifiable but that the coal boss can flash the cash is not in dispute.
Chinasmack has pictures of the wedding reception which is said to have included live performances by pop stars for the enjoyment of the more than 1,000 guests who stayed at the Ritz Carlton, Marriott, and Hilton 5-star hotels and were flown in on three chartered jets.
Chinasmack says the groom’s father is a Hainan property developer and the bride’s dowry was 6 Ferrari sports cars.
