In Nevada, a Chinese King of the Hill

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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324296604578178693593527394.html

In Nevada, a Chinese King of the Hill
By JAMES T. AREDDY

EUREKA, Nev.—Silver prospectors, gamblers and adventurers founded this mining town in 1864, but Eureka has never seen a fortune-hunter quite like Liu Han.

Mr. Liu, a little-known Chinese business mogul, is the primary financier for a $1.3 billion plan to blast the top off a hill called Mount Hope just north of Eureka to remove its lode of metal called molybdenum. Mount Hope, adjacent to the old Pony Express Trail in central Nevada, holds one of the world's biggest undeveloped deposits of the silvery element moly, used to harden steel for advanced applications such as piping for nuclear-power plants.

The Bureau of Land Management last month authorized the mine to operate, greenlighting a project that promises to make Mr. Liu—a 46-year-old who likes driving fast cars and making bold commodity bets—a powerful voice in global moly trade. The Nevada mining deal—along with a similar moly play by Mr. Liu in Australia—illustrates how a budding class of Chinese private investors suddenly has the wherewithal to upend entire sectors.

Mr. Liu's backing for the Eureka project through his closely held company Sichuan Hanlong Group has drawn little notice outside the industry, which dug an estimated $2.2 billion worth of moly out of 10 U.S. mines last year, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.