Decheng Mining News

Standard Chartered Plc said its $175 million provision to cover its exposure to suspected commodities fraud in China was the result of a conservative view of possible costs but didn't believe there were widespread problems in the sector. Chinese authorities launched an investigation in May into whether metals trading firm Decheng Mining and related companies used fake warehouse receipts at Qingdao Port to obtain multiple loans secured against a single cargo of metal. "We believe that in the provisioning we have taken we have taken a very conservative approach. Our exposure in the warehouses around Qingdao is around $250 million in total," StanChart Chief Executive Peter Sands told reporters on a call on Wednesday after the London-based bank announced first-half results.

Citigroup Inc said on Friday it has started proceedings in commercial court in London to enforce its rights over $285 million of financing at two ports in China, where metals are believed to have gone missing. Citigroup said it initiated the action on July 22 after a business counterparty and a Chinese warehouse provider commenced action in British courts to establish their rights. Citigroup's disclosure, made in a quarterly financial filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, did not name the counterparty or the warehouse operator. Standard Chartered, China's CITIC Resources Holdings Ltd, Shanxi Coal International Energy Group and other firms have also made legal claims over metals financing since May.

Citigroup Inc has about $280 million in loans tied to commodities in two Chinese ports which are at the center of a probe into possible fraud, a senior executive said on Friday, becoming the first U.S. bank to disclose its potential exposure. The total is a large portion of the bank's roughly $400 million worth of so-called repo commodity financing deals in China. Short for repurchasing agreements, repo deals give customers access to short-term credit in exchange for goods. "At this stage we believe the activities are isolated and just specific to those very specific locations," Chief Financial Officer John Gerspach said in a conference call with analysts.

China's CITIC Resources Holdings Ltd has begun court proceedings against the operator of a bonded warehouse at Quindao port as legal action ramps up following an investigation into metals financing fraud at the world's seventh busiest port. CITIC Resources said last month it had been unable to secure around 120,000 tonnes of alumina, more than half of the alumina stocks it had title to that were stored at the port pending payment by buyers and delivery. Under the legal action, CITIC is requiring the port operator to confirm its ownership of 223,270 tonnes of alumina and 7,486 tonnes of copper, and to release the metal to the group or to offer compensation, it said in a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange on Tuesday.

Shaken by a fraud investigation into metal financing in the world's seventh-busiest port, banks and trading houses have been made painfully aware of the risks they face storing commodities in China's sprawling warehouse sector. The probe at Qingdao port centres around a private metals trading firm suspected of duplicating warehouse certificates in order to use a metal cargo multiple times to raise financing. Some banks have asked clients to shift metal, used as collateral for loans, to more regulated London Metal Exchange (LME) warehouses outside China or those owned and operated by a single warehouse firm to limit their exposure. "The banks still haven't looked under the hood," said an executive at a bank involved in commodity financing in China, referring to China's warehousing sector.