Pursuits
Brazil’s Richest Family Forging $13 Billion Niobium Dream
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In 1965, U.S. Navy Admiral Arthur W. Radford persuaded Walther Moreira Salles, a Brazilian banker and former ambassador to the U.S., to back a venture to produce something called niobium.
At the time, there was no market or commercial use for the powdery element -- just studies suggesting that tiny amounts of it could make steel stronger and more flexible. Radford sat on the board of mining company Molycorp Inc., which had acquired the rights to deposits of niobium in Brazil’s Minas Gerais state, and needed another investor to start digging.