中资矿企掘金马来西亚"铁山"

BUKIT BESI, Malaysia — Giant mining equipment has stripped away the palm trees and other vegetation from a jungle bluff here with a Malay name that translates to “Iron Hill.” Huge power shovels gouge long furrows down cliffs of fuchsia clay, scooping out the shiny black iron ore at their base.

马来西亚龙运铁山——这本是一个丛林茂密的悬崖，马来语名字的意思是“铁山”，巨型矿山设备已经清除了这里的棕榈树和其他植物。巨大的挖土机挖开了紫红色粘土构成的悬崖，从底下掏出亮黑色的铁矿石。

The mine here operates round the clock, seven days a week. The Chinese-controlled CAA Resources, which reopened the dormant mine early this year, has rapidly ramped up production to an annual rate of 500,000 tons, with plans to double it by next year.

这座铁矿每周七天、每天24小时地运转。中资企业CAA资源公司(CAA Resources)今年年初重新启动了这座“休眠”的铁矿，迅速提高产量至每年50万吨，并计划明年再增加一倍。

Its ambitions, though, are being undermined by the shifting global terrain: Iron ore sells for less and less these days.

不过全球形势的变化，不利于这个雄心勃勃的计划：如今铁矿石的售价正在节节走低。

“China still needs a lot of steel for infrastructure, housing projects and rails,” Li Yang, CAA’s chairman and chief executive, yelled as ore-processing machinery clanked noisily nearby. “The only problem is the pricing.”

“中国的基础设施、住房和轨道修建仍然需要大量钢材，”CAA公司董事长兼首席执行官李阳大声喊道，矿石加工机械在他附近处轰隆作响。“唯一的问题就是价格。”

With seemingly insatiable demand from China, the price of iron ore, along with many other commodities, soared for most of the past decade. China manufactures half the world’s steel, which is made from iron and used for housing construction, rail lines, carmaking and more.

中国的需求似乎永无止境，铁矿石以及许多其他大宗商品的价格，也在过去近十年的时间里大幅飙升。中国的钢产量占全球的一半；而钢材由铁制成，用于房屋建筑、铁路、汽车制造业等。

The boom helped support the rapid growth of companies like CAA, as well as the economies of developing countries rich with resources. From Indonesia and Australia to Peru and Brazil, multinationals and Chinese companies embarked on large-scale, long-term investments in mines.

在这种旺盛需求的推助下，像CAA这样的公司快速发展起来，资源丰富的发展中国家也实现了快速经济增长。从印度尼西亚、澳大利亚到秘鲁、巴西，跨国公司和中资企业对矿场进行了大规模的长期投资。

But the dynamics have changed — and the current downturn may reflect a new reality. China’s economy, once growing in the double digits, has slowed to around 7 percent, with industrial output dropping even more dramatically. Many commodity companies, though, have ramped up production to meet that earlier pace of demand.

但形势已经扭转——目前的经济低迷可能体现了一个新的现实。中国经济在经历两位数的增长后，已放缓至7%左右，工业产出下降的幅度甚至更大。但是很多大宗商品公司为了满足早期的旺盛需求，已经提升了产能。

The result is a double blow to natural resources companies and emerging markets, with few sectors hurt more than iron ore. Prices are down 48 percent since the start of the year, to $70 a metric ton, a five-year low.

因此自然资源公司和新兴市场双双遭到打击，受到冲击最大的当属铁矿石行业。开年以来，铁矿石的价格已经下挫了48%，降至70美元一吨，为五年新低。

Even in the face of falling prices, producers show no signs of easing off, with low-cost industry giants leading the charge.

即便价格低迷，生产商仍未显示出生产放缓的迹象，低成本运行的行业大鳄正在带头扩产。

Vale of Brazil said in August that it wants to double shipments to China in five years. BHP Billiton of Australia announced plans the same month to invest $2 billion in mine expansion projects. Rio Tinto, a company based in London with extensive operations in Australia, is in the process of bolstering production 13 percent by next year and another 8 percent by 2017.

巴西淡水河谷(Vale)今年8月份表示，它希望在五年内把对华出货量增加一倍。澳大利亚必和必拓(BHP Billiton)同月也宣布，将投资20亿美元扩建矿山。总部设在伦敦的力拓(Rio Tinto)在澳大利亚开展着大量业务，该公司计划明年扩产13%，2017年再扩产8%。

Chinese companies, too, have been relentlessly expanding overseas. In Malaysia, the number of iron ore mines in operation has increased more than sevenfold since 2007, mainly from Chinese investment.

中国公司也在不懈地拓展海外市场。自2007年以来，在马来西亚运营的铁矿数量增长了逾七倍，投资方主要来自中国。

As iron ore demand has fallen, mines like the one here in Bukit Besi have kept running partly by digging deep into the most iron-rich part of their seams, instead of developing them more evenly, mining the poor-quality ore with the good. That has kept a torrent of iron ore entering the market even as prices have plummeted.

由于铁矿石的需求有所下降，龙运铁山等铁矿保持运转的方法之一是深入挖掘含铁量最丰富的部分矿藏，而不是比较均匀地开发它们，劣质矿和优质矿一起挖掘。因此即使价格暴跌，还是有大量铁矿石进入市场。

“They exacerbate the problem by everyone doing the most profitable part,” said Bruce Diesen, a commodities specialist at Carnegie ASA, an Oslo-based asset management company.

“他们加剧了问题的严重性，导致每家公司都做最赚钱的部分，”布鲁斯·迪森(Bruce Diesen)表示，他是位于奥斯陆的资产管理公司卡内基ASA(Carnegie ASA)的分析师。

CAA Resources has been at the center of the push here, reopening Malaysia’s most famous mine. Discovered in the jungles of eastern Peninsular Malaysia in 1916 by a Japanese geologist, Bukit Besi became one of the world’s largest mines as it supplied the Japanese steel industry through World War II.

CAA是这种情况的主要推动者，它重新开启了马来西亚最著名的矿山。龙运铁山是一名日本地质学家1916年在马来西亚半岛东部的丛林中发现的，曾经是世界上最大的矿山之一，二战期间曾为日本钢铁业提供原材料。

The British seized the mine as war spoils after Japan’s surrender and handed it over to a British company. The British mining company initially struggled with Communist insurgency attacks on its rail lines, including bombings that destroyed three train stations, but nonetheless became a big supplier of ore for Japan’s postwar industrial revival.

日本投降后，这座矿山作为战利品，移交给了一家英国公司。最初一段时间，矿山的铁路线遭到共产党武装分子的袭击，3座火车站被炸毁，令英国矿业公司头痛不已，但该矿仍然成为了日本战后工业复兴的重要供应商。

Then, in 1971, the mine closed because of what a historic marker here describes as bureaucracy and labor union troubles. The site sat idle for most of the next four decades.

该矿于1971年关闭，当地的一处历史纪念碑称，关闭原因是官僚主义和工会问题。过去四十年中，该矿大多数时候都处于闲置状态。

Learning from the mistakes of his predecessors, Mr. Li, the 27-year-old CAA chief and scion of a Chinese family that had grown wealthy in the mainland iron ore industry, immediately worked to build ties with local and national political leaders, as well as with Malaysian royalty.

CAA的首席执行官李阳现年27岁，出身于富裕的中国铁矿家族。他从前任经营者的错误中吸取教训，加紧与当地和该国政治领导人，以及马来西亚皇室培养关系。

“If you’ve got these two to support you, then you can do anything you want, because the natural resources are all controlled by them,” Mr. Li said.

“有了这两方面的支持，你可以做成任何想做的事情，因为自然资源都在他们的掌控之中，”李阳说。

Mr. Li, who owns 56 percent of CAA, said that he had paid for each of the ruling party politicians with indirect stakes in the mine to receive the royally granted title of “dato,” which roughly translates as “the honorable.” It costs about $100,000 to arrange each royal grant, he said.

持有CAA公司56%股份的李阳表示，为了获得王室授予的头衔“拿督”(dato)——可大致理解为“地位尊崇者”——他给执政党的每位政治人士都提供了铁矿的间接股份。他说，安排每次王室封衔，都要花费大约10万美元。

Although anti-corruption groups have campaigned against such arrangements, particularly indirect stakes, Mr. Li said he was simply following common practices in Malaysia. A government-linked industry group in Beijing announced plans on Oct. 24 to introduce standards for Chinese companies in areas like labor rights, environmental protection and community relations.

虽然反腐败组织对此类做法，尤其是提供间接股份的做法表示反对，但是李阳说，这样做只是遵循马来西亚的惯例。10月24日，北京一个与政府有关的行业协会宣布了一套指导原则，就劳工权益、环境保护和社区关系等问题为在海外运营的中国公司设定了规范。

To avoid potential labor issues, Mr. Li has largely imported workers, who are not unionized. CAA Resources brought in about 40 mining engineers, accountants and other professionals from China, and filled the rest of its work force with laborers from low-wage countries like Cambodia, Myanmar and Vietnam. The workers are on 12-hour shifts, up to seven days a week, and are paid based mostly on how much iron ore each shift can produce, Mr. Li said.

为了避免劳工纠纷，李阳主要从国外招工，而且这些工人并未形成组织。CAA从中国带来了约40名采矿工程师、会计和其他专业人士，其他工作人员则是来自柬埔寨、缅甸和越南等低收入国家的工人。李阳说，这些工人会进行轮替，每个班次12小时，每周工作7天，他们的工资基本按照每班能开采多少铁矿石来决定。

Pacing across the jungle mine, Mr. Li described his recruitment pitch to potential hires. “You can save a lot of money, there is nothing to do here,” he said, “I say, ‘Each of you will be a hero, you will take back 100 percent of your savings, your wife will be happier, your children will be happier.' ”

李阳一边在丛林密布的矿区漫步，一边讲述了他招人时针对潜在雇员的说辞。“你可以省下很多钱，这里没有别的事可做，”他说，“我告诉他们，‘你们每个人都会成为英雄，你可以把百分之百的积蓄拿回去，你的妻子会更高兴，你的孩子也会更幸福。’”

He has avoided filing an environmental-impact statement by erecting an eight-foot-high, blue corrugated-steel fence across the middle of the site with a gate, and calling it two mines, each less than 500 acres. Only mines over 500 acres require environmental approval.

他在矿区中间立起了一道高8英尺（约合2.5米）的蓝色瓦楞钢制围墙，还给它安了一扇门，然后说这是两个矿，每个矿的面积都不到500英亩（约合200公顷）。通过这样做，他成功避免了提交一份环境影响声明。只有面积超过500英亩的矿才需要环境方面的许可。

Now, CAA’s biggest challenges are from outside forces.

如今，CAA最大的挑战来自外部力量。

For one, Bukit Besi’s ore is less rich in iron than what rivals produce in Australia or Brazil, although better than most Chinese ore. Less concentrated iron ore needs to go through a costly extra step, known as beneficiation, before it can be sold. That eats into CAA’s profit.

首先，尽管龙运铁山矿石的含铁量比大多数中国矿石要高，但它还是比不上竞争对手在澳大利亚或巴西开采的铁矿。含铁量较低的铁矿在出售前，还要经历一个被称为“选矿”的步骤，这个步骤花费很高。CAA的利润也因此受损。

Transportation, too, is a costly proposition. Australian and Brazilian iron ore mines are connected by rail lines to deepwater ports that can handle some of the world’s largest bulk freighters. That limits their shipping costs to China at around $8 a ton. By contrast, it costs $16 a ton to ship Malaysian iron ore to China because Malaysian ports are shallower — although a deeper port is scheduled to open by the end of next year.

运输也是一个花费高昂的过程。澳大利亚和巴西的铁矿由铁路线和能容纳世界上最大的散装货船的深水港口连接了起来。所以，从这两个国家到中国的运输成本才得以限制在每吨8美元左右。但是，把马来西亚铁矿运送到中国，每吨的成本是16美元，因为马来西亚的港口较浅——尽管一个较深的港口计划在明年年底前开放。

But CAA benefits from a home-field advantage of sorts.

但是，所谓的主场优势可以给CAA带来好处。

The Chinese steel industry — and the Chinese government, which guides purchasing policies — has been reluctant to rely exclusively on Australia and Brazil, given its past difficulties. In the years before the global financial crisis, such players sharply increased ore export prices.

由于过去曾面临困境，中国钢铁行业——以及引导采购政策的中国政府——不愿意完全依赖澳大利亚和巴西。在国际金融危机爆发前，两国的供应商曾大幅度抬高矿石的出口价格。

“There is a strategic imperative — China does not want to be solely dependent on Australia and Brazil,” said Tim Huxley, chief executive of Wah Kwong Maritime Transport Holdings, a big Hong Kong shipping company active in carrying iron ore to China. “They’ve done that before, and it cost them a lot of money.”

“这里有个战略原因——中国不想只去依赖澳大利亚和巴西，”香港大型航运公司华光海运控股有限公司(Wah Kwong Maritime Transport Holdings)的首席执行官蒂莫西·赫胥黎(Timothy Huxley)说，这家公司目前正在积极参与把铁矿运到中国的过程。“他们曾经就是这样做的，为此花了很多钱。”

With migrant workers, CAA’s labor costs are tiny compared with those of mines elsewhere. The company has brought in Chinese mining equipment at less than half the cost of American or Japanese equipment — and has the connections with manufacturers to get broken parts fixed quickly.

因为使用外来工人，与其他地方的矿区相比，CAA的劳动力成本可谓十分低廉。公司带来了中国的采矿设备，其成本连美国或日本设备的一半都不到——而且公司还与制造商有联系，能够快速修好损坏部件。

So Mr. Li insists that his company’s Malaysian mines could still cover their costs and show a modest profit shipping ore back to China at prices close to $80 a ton.

所以，李阳坚称，他的公司在马来西亚的矿区能够承担其开销，而且还能通过以将近80美元一吨的价格把矿石运回中国，获取一定利润。

“We’re still positive by this time,” he said. “The open pit process has low costs.”

“目前，我们仍持乐观态度，”他说。“露天采矿的成本较低。”