transition metals

SHANGHAI -An Australian executive and three other employees of mining giant Rio Tinto went on trial Monday on charges of stealing secrets and offering bribes in a case viewed as a barometer of China's handling of foreign business. China has warned against politicizing the case, which has been an irritant in relations with Australia. Australia has protested the plan to close court sessions involving the commercial secrets charges.

The world will be watching how this particular case is conducted   -Kevin Rudd

 

Buoyed by rise in consumer demand, the jewellery industry in India, is poised to surge in the next 6-12 months, according to the World Gold Council. "In 2008, China crossed India in gold consumption (in terms of tonnage of gold bought). The slowdown did take a toll on the Indian jewellery industry (gold consumption in India in 2009 was down 33 per cent from 2008) but it has bounced back in the last 6-8 months. In 2009, India regained its supremacy by clocking 480 tonnes. China was at 446 tonnes. The next  

With talks between China's high-cost steel industry and the global miners moving from the commercial to the political realm, we believe the endgame will be a mate for the miners with the current annual benchmark system evolving into a quarterly "virtual spot," up 90%-100% vs. last year. The Chinese Ministry of Commerce has agreed to step into the fray and will "take moves to support Chinese steel mills, including adopting necessary trade measures." We believe that political measures will be useless as t  

Toronto-based Barrick, the world's biggest gold miner, said Friday that the IPO for 101 million ordinary shares of African Barrick Gold would be priced at 5.75 pounds (C$8.77) per share on the main market of the London Stock Exchange. Company spokesman Vince Borg said he expects the shares to begin trading on Wednesday. Barrick will use the proceeds of the offering "for developing our pipeline of projects and general corporate purposes," Borg said.

for developing our pipeline of projects and general corporate purposes   -Vince Borg

 

Each day, armed guards usher in the mail at the squat, windowless building on Gateway Drive in Pompano Beach. The day's delivery, tucked inside unmarked envelopes, is a mother lode of wedding bands, broken bracelets, unwanted necklaces, chains, earrings, anklets, brooches, even dental fillings. The baubles are logged in, photographed, weighed, assayed and — provided the owner accepts a mailed check as payment — heated to 1,800 degrees until transformed into molten metal.  

A mineral inventory update at Intex Resources' Mindoro Nickel Project in the Philippines has resulted in a 70% increase in laterite ore reserves to 126.3 million tonnes of 0.95% nickel. The estimate is for the Lower Kisluyan and Buraboy laterite deposits, which were previously estimated to contain 74.2 million tonnes. 0.92% nickel and 0.09% cobalt, and 67.1 million tonnes of saprolite ore at 0.98% nickel and 0.03% cobalt. The reserves contain about 1.2 million tonnes of nickel and 76,000 tonnes of c  

Improving nickel prices have prompted Atlas Consolidated Mining and Development Corp to consider re-opening its Berong mine in Palawan. The company's subsidiary Berong Nickel Corp closed the mine in February 2009, laying off more than 600 workers, due to low nickel prices and poor demand. With growth in China and other Asian countries beginning to pick up, demand for nickel is increasing, pushing up prices from the lows of the global financial crisis.  

Entree Gold is set to begin first phase exploration of the Shivee West copper-gold-molybdenum prospect in southern Mongolia. The company has budgeted about US$4 million for the work which will be undertaken during the northern hemisphere field season. The program will include detailed geophysics and about 5000 metres of drilling to test deep geophysical targets and copper, molybdenum, gold soil geochemical targets within a belt of prospective Devonian rocks identified in earlier programs.  

Reconnaissance field work at Hillgrove Resources' Bird's Head Project in West Papua has confirmed the presence of significant copper and gold mineralization within two prospects in the Delta target area. The field work has confirmed that the large copper signature from soil sampling is due to porphyry-style mineralization. It has confirmed the presence of disseminated and vein-hosted copper/gold mineralization within altered intrusive, along with assay values of low to medium grade range, as expected  

Drilling at Asia Now Resources' Beiya North target adjacent to the operating open-pit Beiya Gold Mine has extended gold/silver mineralization. Beiya is the largest gold mine in Yunnan Province with annual production capacity of 100,000 ounces. The mine is being expanded to double current production.