Shenghe investment in uranium+rare-earth mine “implements vision reached during minister’s meeting with Greenlanders”

Shenghe 盛和 Resources’ investment in the Kvanefjeld project was made “in order to implement the vision” on mining cooperation “reached at the time of a meeting between minister of land and resources Jiang Daming 姜大明 and Greenland officials in 2015”, according to information published by the IMUMR, the state institution that controls Shenghe. The IMUMR is under Jiang’s ministry.

The acquisition, first announced in September and completed in the last few weeks, gives Shenghe one eigth of shares in Greenland Minerals and Energy (GME), the ASX-listed company running the Kvanefjeld project, as well as the right to appoint a non-executive director (Wenting Chen) to its board. This makes Shenghe the largest individual shareholder GME. Once the project receives an exploitation permit, Shengha could eventually increase its involvement to a 60% stake, a possibility whose presence in the September agreement GME took pains to deny and later confirm. GME’s initial unwillingness to acknowledge Shenghe’s stated intentions was perhaps due to a wish to avoid eliciting negative reactions in Denmark, where news about increasing Chinese presence in Greenland feed security worries.

The IMUMR’s explicit reference to the Kvanefjeld investment as part of a “vision” is another sign of the key role the Ministry of Land and Resources has in China’s moves in Greenland. GME’s talks with Shenghe did indeed start in 2015, possibly after those ministerial meetings. Until then, the Kvanefjeld project looked more likely to be developed with another state-owned company, China Nonferrous (中色), as envisaged by an earlier (non-binding) agreement.