He could have bought cheaper mines in Africa and South America, but he preferred Asarco because it offered a stable business opportunity in the world's largest and high-premium market.
Presumably these initial investments allow for a nice arbitrage opportunity by buying cheap mining hardware and simply keeping the lights on while well-heeled clients drop off checks and take a bit of profit.
Then A child's toy became a cheap mine-clearing robot.
Problems began many years ago because Germany's coal cannot compete with South Africa's, which is cheaper to mine.
"If colonies on the moon or Mars become a reality, it may be cheaper to mine resources on asteroids rather than transport them from Earth.
People's Daily, the Communist Party's main newspaper, said that a Chinese company had helped cover the cost of the square and a new museum next to it (estimated at around $50m by Xinhua, a state news agency) in return for a cheap-rate mining concession.Land disputes between miners and Mongol herders became commonplace.
Because the high-sulfur coal had been ignored for so long, the coal seams are thicker, not as deep underground, and thus easier (and cheaper) to mine.
And when it comes to fossil fuels, coal is the easy winner - it is generally easier and cheaper to mine, and easier to transport using existing infrastructure such as roads and rail, than oil or gas.
But the gains would go almost entirely to Western coal-producing states such as Montana and Wyoming, where it's cheaper to mine.
The cheapest naval mines — the ones you tend to see bobbing in the ocean in movies, video games, and cartoons — are practically the IEDs of the sea, dirt-cheap and deadly.
