Author Archives: bjcbjcbjc

About bjcbjcbjc

Benjamin Cox is Chief Executive Officer of Roche Bay, an iron ore mining company which owns mining leases in Nunavut, Canada. Mr. Cox has researched and developed business, financial and shipping models for every major iron ore project, focusing on their economics. He is also an expert on steel industry market dynamics with a raw materials focus, including sub-markets such as DRI and HBI. Mr. Cox has spent a significant time on the dry bulk shipping market and its impact on the iron ore market. He writes regular industry updates on a blog called the Roche Bay List, from the industry from a market perspective. Mr. Cox regularly speaks at industry conferences, on topics ranging from the global pellet premium to the iron ore oligopoly. He holds a BS from Brandeis University and an MBA from Portland State University with a focus on Finance. Mr. Cox does original, custom financial and market research on the iron ore and steel markets.

Cliffs continues to surprise

Cleveland-Cliffs and Alpha Natural Resources to merge, creating Cliffs Natural Resources, a leading diversified mining and natural resources company Now, finally, Cliffs is out spending its seed corn. The question is, will it get returns from it? What has protected … Continue reading

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Filed under Anglo, By Benjamin, Cliffs, Xstrata

Chinese sell out of U.S. project to Cliffs

PR-Insider.com: Cleveland-Cliffs updates 2008 iron ore revenue-per-ton guidance; provides commentary on 2009 North American iron ore pricing Reuters: Cleveland-Cliffs buys out minority holder in Minnesota What is 30% of 5.2 million tonnes of U.S. pellet production worth? Apparently a whole … Continue reading

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Filed under By Benjamin, Cliffs, Iron Ore, Mining

From my day job

Advanced Explorations Inc. to earn up to 70% interest in Roche Bay Project

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Filed under Advanced Explorations Inc., By Benjamin, Roche Bay

Sinosteel almost gets Midwest

Sinosteel gets control, but likely to have company at Midwest Okay, they have more than 50%, but they are probably not going to get 100%, and that sort of makes their life hard. They are going to be stuck in … Continue reading

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Filed under By Benjamin, Iron Ore, Midwest, Sinosteel

Old news, EU antitrust wants more time to look at Rio Tinto-BHP deal

Forbes.com: EU extends deadline for inquiry into BHP Billiton’s buy of Rio Tinto to December 9 The EU wisely said, “Wait a second, do we really want a really, really large mining company?” and now is going to spend more … Continue reading

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Filed under BHP, Iron Ore, Rio Tinto

It is all in the market control

The Australian: Treasurer slams gate on Chinese raids This article asks the most basic of questions, “The question here is, is it in Australia’s national interest for a buyer of our resources to control our resource-producing companies?” That’s not a … Continue reading

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Filed under Iron Ore

BHP falls in line behind Rio Tinto’s iron ore price, maybe

Not much news here, but if it is true, BHP matched Rio Tinto’s price for 2008. Not a huge surprise. Bloomberg.com: BHP will agree iron ore price in line with Rio Tinto, Financial Times says

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Filed under BHP, Iron Ore, Rio Tinto

Letter to Santa from Mittal

Bloomberg.com: ArcelorMittal says Rio Tinto’s IOC unit would be `natural fit’ Dear EU antitrust commission and Santa, Rio and BHP are going to be very bad this year; you must punish them. So to keep it short, all I want … Continue reading

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Filed under BHP, Iron Ore, Mittal, Rio Tinto