Price of Lead Shot

[TNGhost]

Ron,

Do you have access to figures of U.S. lead consumption for 10 or so years,leading up to your 2014 figures? Might be a clue there.

 

[coloradoclyde]

Ron here is a nice N.A.S.A. presentation. http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...kXbDR7BjIVW2AnqCA&sig2=iQ3dHeKxpSp709JBSA7j7w

 

[TNGhost]

Found some stats at: http://www.statista.com/statistics/264877/world-consumption-of-lead-metal/

They say worldwide lead production took a downturn in 2014. To the tune of about 250k metric tons. Not a lot mind you, but the first downturn in at least a decade.

The USGS report; http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/lead/mcs-2015-lead.pdf

indicates an increase in U.S. mined lead concentrates over the past 4 years, which would seem to counter the "expense of getting out of the ground" argument. The government did succeed in closing down the last primary smelter in the U.S., so primary production dropped to near nothing.

Quoted from the USGS report "The Herculaneum, Missouri lead smelter, the only domestic primary lead smelter, closed at yearend 2013, per an
agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency."

This would seem to indicate that regulation indeed is a major factor in the increase of prices.

Seems we're entering into a period of centrally planned economic activity, kind of like a Marxist state.

 

[coloradoclyde]

Found some stats at: http://www.statista.com/statistics/264877/world-consumption-of-lead-metal/

They say worldwide lead production took a downturn in 2014. To the tune of about 250k metric tons. Not a lot mind you, but the first downturn in at least a decade.

The USGS report; http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/lead/mcs-2015-lead.pdf

indicates an increase in U.S. mined lead concentrates over the past 4 years, which would seem to counter the "expense of getting out of the ground" argument. The government did succeed in closing down the last primary smelter in the U.S., so primary production dropped to near nothing.

Quoted from the USGS report "The Herculaneum, Missouri lead smelter, the only domestic primary lead smelter, closed at yearend 2013, per an
agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency."

This would seem to indicate that regulation indeed is a major factor in the increase of prices.

Seems we're entering into a period of centrally planned economic activity, kind of like a Marxist state.

Inaccurate assumptions by misinterpreting the data.
You can't just post statistics and then make up whatever cockamamie theory that fits your fancy. :shake:

 

[RonRC]

You are correct in that an agreement with EPA was for a final closedown of the Herculaneum site in 2013. However, that had been set in motion some time before. The driving forces for the closure were
1) the ancient technology used at the site that hadn’t been modernized in many decades. The cost to bring operations up to date was prohibitive. So, in 2010, the company announced its intention to close its primary smelter at the end of 2013;

2) The value of the property with its strategic location on the Mississippi River. The company that owns the site, Doe Run, decided to “repurpose” the Herculaneum site in conjunction with developers. They will develop 350 acres of the property for light industry with storage and shipping facilities with rail and barge connections.

In order to do the redevelopment, the company had to reach agreements with EPA to remediate and reclaim the property.
Not only has the company that owns the Herculaneum operation had to contend with EPA, but their Peruvian mine operations have resulted in the area surrounding the mine being declared one of the top 10 most polluted sites in the world.
Ron

 

[TNGhost]

Found some stats at: http://www.statista.com/statistics/264877/world-consumption-of-lead-metal/

They say worldwide lead production took a downturn in 2014. To the tune of about 250k metric tons. Not a lot mind you, but the first downturn in at least a decade.

The USGS report; http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/lead/mcs-2015-lead.pdf

indicates an increase in U.S. mined lead concentrates over the past 4 years, which would seem to counter the "expense of getting out of the ground" argument. The government did succeed in closing down the last primary smelter in the U.S., so primary production dropped to near nothing.

Quoted from the USGS report "The Herculaneum, Missouri lead smelter, the only domestic primary lead smelter, closed at yearend 2013, per an
agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency."

This would seem to indicate that regulation indeed is a major factor in the increase of prices.

Seems we're entering into a period of centrally planned economic activity, kind of like a Marxist state.

Inaccurate assumptions by misinterpreting the data.
You can't just post statistics and then make up whatever cockamamie theory that fits your fancy. :shake:

Well, if that's the case, at least I'm in good company, like with NASA and NOAA scientists :haha:, but personally i think my interpretation might be better than theirs, and less harmful.

You know I think we may have hit on something here that may relate to the OP.

Lead prices may have increased on a curve relative to global warming, it could be because of .............:shocked2: Climate Change. :rotf: :rotf: :rotf:

Let me get out my slide rule and double check :hmm:

 

[coloradoclyde]

Yes! I'm sure you are much smarter and more informed than those scientists......You probably have a wall full of degrees from Columbiana University...

You do realize that Doe run had to buy over 160 homes due to pollution Plus everyone in town has elevated lead levels in their blood, and the facility if not the whole town will likely become another of Missouri's long list of lead contaminated superfund sites. :shake:

 

[TNGhost]

Yes! I'm sure you are much smarter and more informed than those scientists......You probably have a wall full of degrees from Columbiana University...

You do realize that Doe run had to buy over 160 homes due to pollution Plus everyone in town has elevated lead levels in their blood, and the facility if not the whole town will likely become another of Missouri's long list of lead contaminated superfund sites. :shake:

No pertinent degrees, but I do have something they lack, common sense, which tells me, and anyone else with it, that government intervention raised lead prices.

 

[coloradoclyde]

I guess you could get you info straight from the horses mouth..... http://sustainability2013.doerun.com/social/new-day-herculaneum/

http://www.epa.gov/enforcement/doe-run-resources-corporation-settlement

 

[TNGhost]

You are correct in that an agreement with EPA was for a final closedown of the Herculaneum site in 2013. However, that had been set in motion some time before. The driving forces for the closure were
1) the ancient technology used at the site that hadn’t been modernized in many decades. The cost to bring operations up to date was prohibitive. So, in 2010, the company announced its intention to close its primary smelter at the end of 2013;

2) The value of the property with its strategic location on the Mississippi River. The company that owns the site, Doe Run, decided to “repurpose” the Herculaneum site in conjunction with developers. They will develop 350 acres of the property for light industry with storage and shipping facilities with rail and barge connections.

In order to do the redevelopment, the company had to reach agreements with EPA to remediate and reclaim the property.
Not only has the company that owns the Herculaneum operation had to contend with EPA, but their Peruvian mine operations have resulted in the area surrounding the mine being declared one of the top 10 most polluted sites in the world.
Ron

In other words, the EPA said put xxx millions of dollars into your business to bring it to our arbitrary standards, or we'll shut you down. They capitulated and like any good business formulated a plan to cut their losses. Just like the coal industry is doing now when faced with the same strongarm Marxist bureaucracy tactics.

I'd still like your take on why the uptick in lead mining, despite the closing, and how it relates to prices, given your involvement with the mining industry.

 

[coloradoclyde]

No pertinent degrees, but I do have something they lack, common sense, which tells me, and anyone else with it, that government intervention is helping restore the polluted environment and saved thousands of lives. reminds me of Nitro West Virginia or Anniston Alabama. where the Government had to step in and stop evil corporations from killing people.

At most the Herculaneum plant produced 11% of the lead used....that hardy equates to a doubling and tripling of prices.
"Common sense" huh! :rotf:

 

[TNGhost]

I'll have to admit that I do not have a good solid answer for you. But.....I do have some ideas and opinions that are based on things that I have heard and read. First, all lead production has been pushed off shore by all of the prohibitive regulations in the U.S. We no longer produce it and pricing has been placed into the hands of foreign countries. Also, the regulations on lead handling and disposal in the U.S have forced the prices of lead products through the roof. I don't expect to see the price to come down. In fact, we may one day see it come to pass that all lead will be prohibited in the U.S and we will be forced to obtain lead through recovery of lead from the backstops at gun ranges, finding lead flashing and possibly lead pipe from old houses that are being torn down and such places as that. I am fortunate in that my son works for a medical facility where scrap lead is still available for free and I am stocking up on it as it becomes available. I have more than I need right now but am still acquiring it because I can sell locally what I don't need.

If a certain attitude being displayed in this thread prevails, this is precisely where we are headed, and to some this is the desired effect.

 

[coloradoclyde]

Jack and Leslie Warden lived about two blocks from the smelter. They're driving me around the old neighborhood.

"All the trucks traveled this road," Jack Warden says. "And the dust was on the sides of the streets here. Both sides."

This is where they raised their son ”“ but in the late 1990s they started wondering how safe it was. For one thing, there was this thick dust on the streets where the trucks drove in from the lead mines.

Dave Mosby worked for the Missouri Department of Natural Resources. "Jack Warden had been telling me about lead dust, or dust coming from trucks on the roads, and that wasn't something we'd really considered."

After a community meeting in Herculaneum one night, Warden convinced him to take a look at the dust on the streets outside.

"We went out with him late at night, and I could see, even by the street lamp, that it was likely to be contaminated with heavy metals," Mosby says. "It had a metallic luster."

Back at their new home a few miles south of Herculaneum, Warden unscrews a small glass jar.

"This is what the contamination on the streets was," he says, spilling a bit on the kitchen table. "I don't like getting it anywhere on the house."

It looks kind of like pencil dust, like after you sharpen a pencil.




30 percent lead.

Credit Jacob Fenston / KBIA

"This was all over. It covered the side-walking areas. Kids would ride their bicycle down the street and they'd see that dust, they'd lock the brakes up, slide the back tire around on the bicycle, dust would just go flying. And that's what they were breathing ”“ 30 percent lead."

The Department of Natural Resources test came back: the dust from the streets in Herculaneum contained 300,000 parts per million lead. That's 30 percent.

"We begged and begged and begged, and Jack strong-armed poor Dave Mosby into doing that test. But when the test came out, were we happy about it? We cried. We cried ”“ 30 percent lead our kids were playing in. It wasn't good news."

But it did lead to action. The Department of Natural Resources issued a cease and desist order. And soon federal health officials got involved.

http://kbia.org/post/end-lead-laced-era-polluting-smelter-close-after-120-years

 

[TNGhost]

Jack and Leslie Warden lived about two blocks from the smelter. They're driving me around the old neighborhood.

"All the trucks traveled this road," Jack Warden says. "And the dust was on the sides of the streets here. Both sides."

This is where they raised their son ”“ but in the late 1990s they started wondering how safe it was. For one thing, there was this thick dust on the streets where the trucks drove in from the lead mines.

Dave Mosby worked for the Missouri Department of Natural Resources. "Jack Warden had been telling me about lead dust, or dust coming from trucks on the roads, and that wasn't something we'd really considered."

After a community meeting in Herculaneum one night, Warden convinced him to take a look at the dust on the streets outside.

"We went out with him late at night, and I could see, even by the street lamp, that it was likely to be contaminated with heavy metals," Mosby says. "It had a metallic luster."

Back at their new home a few miles south of Herculaneum, Warden unscrews a small glass jar.

"This is what the contamination on the streets was," he says, spilling a bit on the kitchen table. "I don't like getting it anywhere on the house."

It looks kind of like pencil dust, like after you sharpen a pencil.




30 percent lead.

Credit Jacob Fenston / KBIA

"This was all over. It covered the side-walking areas. Kids would ride their bicycle down the street and they'd see that dust, they'd lock the brakes up, slide the back tire around on the bicycle, dust would just go flying. And that's what they were breathing ”“ 30 percent lead."

The Department of Natural Resources test came back: the dust from the streets in Herculaneum contained 300,000 parts per million lead. That's 30 percent.

"We begged and begged and begged, and Jack strong-armed poor Dave Mosby into doing that test. But when the test came out, were we happy about it? We cried. We cried ”“ 30 percent lead our kids were playing in. It wasn't good news."

But it did lead to action. The Department of Natural Resources issued a cease and desist order. And soon federal health officials got involved.

http://kbia.org/post/end-lead-laced-era-polluting-smelter-close-after-120-years[/quote]

I know I know, its for the children :wink:

At least we now know who's on which side of the argument.

 

[coloradoclyde]

Do you know what's in your back yard? :hmm:

 

[RonRC]

TNGhost,
I understand the point you are making. However, it is important to choose your examples carefully. I am afraid that this is one case in which the company operated knowingly in a fashion that resulted in contamination of a community and the people there at a level I only see in third world countries.
Lead is nasty. Not the lead that sits there in the berm on a shooting range. That lead is not a threat. The lead that is inhaled or ingested leads to organ and brain damage. This is not a result of environmentalist's claims, but from 100 years of medical research.
More to the point: Herculaneum is not closing because of EPA. It is closing because they can't afford the Florar technology upgrade to make them cost competitive and they can make bigger money on redevelopment of the site.
It also makes sense that no one will redevelop a site that has a remarkable level of contamination. No one would buy a property unless they knew that the site was remediated.

The cost of underground mining such as what goes on in the Tri-states area is very high. That is why open pit mining now dominates the industry.

For underground mining, the infrastructure alone that has to be built- drilling blast holes, charging blast holes, excavating the waste rock, transporting the waste rock out of the mine, building a waste rock repository outside the mine, supplying and extending ventilation, electricity, water for drilling, transport of miners, is very costly before a ounce of ore is processed. Then, the ore is sent to a processing facility where the rock is crushed in multiple steps, material is sized and some sent back to be crushed again, the waste material transported out to a tailings repository on the outside (which has to be engineering and constructed in a sound fashion so it doesn't fail - costly). The ore is then put through a high temperature smelting process that produces sulfates that have to be treated before leaving the smokestack or it will put sulfuric acid in the air. The ore is put through additional chemical steps to make the lead.

Compare that to trucking the to-be-recycled material to the secondary processing plant and purifying the lead at lower temperatures. Then it is shipped to distributors.
Ron

 

[TNGhost]

TNGhost,
I understand the point you are making. However, it is important to choose your examples carefully. I am afraid that this is one case in which the company operated knowingly in a fashion that resulted in contamination of a community and the people there at a level I only see in third world countries.
Lead is nasty. Not the lead that sits there in the berm on a shooting range. That lead is not a threat. The lead that is inhaled or ingested leads to organ and brain damage. This is not a result of environmentalist's claims, but from 100 years of medical research.
More to the point: Herculaneum is not closing because of EPA. It is closing because they can't afford the Florar technology upgrade to make them cost competitive and they can make bigger money on redevelopment of the site.
It also makes sense that no one will redevelop a site that has a remarkable level of contamination. No one would buy a property unless they knew that the site was remediated.

The cost of underground mining such as what goes on in the Tri-states area is very high. That is why open pit mining now dominates the industry.

For underground mining, the infrastructure alone that has to be built- drilling blast holes, charging blast holes, excavating the waste rock, transporting the waste rock out of the mine, building a waste rock repository outside the mine, supplying and extending ventilation, electricity, water for drilling, transport of miners, is very costly before a ounce of ore is processed. Then, the ore is sent to a processing facility where the rock is crushed in multiple steps, material is sized and some sent back to be crushed again, the waste material transported out to a tailings repository on the outside (which has to be engineering and constructed in a sound fashion so it doesn't fail - costly). The ore is then put through a high temperature smelting process that produces sulfates that have to be treated before leaving the smokestack or it will put sulfuric acid in the air. The ore is put through additional chemical steps to make the lead.

Compare that to trucking the to-be-recycled material to the secondary processing plant and purifying the lead at lower temperatures. Then it is shipped to distributors.
Ron

Ron,
Typical leftist answer full of smoke and mirrors while still not answering the question, why is lead mine production in the U.S. increasing? There is no smelter. Where is the ore going? What effect does this have on price?

OK, I'll bite on the well worn poor victims routine. The Doe Run Company started life in 1864, as St. Joe Lead(think War of Northern Aggression bullets :wink: ). The Herculaneum smelter debuted in 1892, in "isolation".

So how many of those helpless victims of lead savagery moved there after the smelter existed? You move next to a known hazard, (I believe you said lead has been known to be dangerously toxic for over 100 years),you reap the rewards, Darwinian.

Except in this case I am sure the reward included a handsome settlement from the company, and/or the government(tax dollars :hmm and this "reward" most certainly affected lead prices, Marxian.

You may understand my point, but you're not getting it. Lead prices are up in the U.S. because, those who know what's best for the rest of us, are taking it away for our own "safety" :wink: . If you don't see this, then at some level you have bought into the leftist plan for "utopia".

 

[necchi]

Do you know that you can use the backspace or left/click delete keys to remove some of the quoted post?
Instead of quoting a guy's full post,, why not juts select the sentence or phrase you you are responding too?

 

[coloradoclyde]

Typical leftist answer full of smoke and mirrors while still not answering the question, why is lead mine production in the U.S. increasing? There is no smelter. Where is the ore going? What effect does this have on price?

OK, I'll bite on the well worn poor victims routine. The Doe Run Company started life in 1864, as St. Joe Lead(think War of Northern Aggression bullets ). The Herculaneum smelter debuted in 1892, in "isolation".

So how many of those helpless victims of lead savagery moved there after the smelter existed? You move next to a known hazard, (I believe you said lead has been known to be dangerously toxic for over 100 years),you reap the rewards, Darwinian.

Except in this case I am sure the reward included a handsome settlement from the company, and/or the government(tax dollars ) and this "reward" most certainly affected lead prices, Marxian.

You may understand my point, but you're not getting it. Lead prices are up in the U.S. because, those who know what's best for the rest of us, are taking it away for our own "safety" . If you don't see this, then at some level you have bought into the leftist plan for "utopia".

Typical uneducated emotional response....
If you really want an answer to an economic question perhaps you should stop sitting on the couch playing video games and spend some time in a library studying economics.

 

[necchi]

why is lead mine production in the U.S. increasing? There is no smelter. Where is the ore going?

I thought you had common sense?
Lead ore is going to the same place corn, beans, cotton and many other commodities are going.
Ain't here in the USA, I'll let you figure out the rest,, :wink: