Infomine

By Cecilia Jamasmie Rio Tinto (LON, ASX, NYSE:RIO), the world’s second-biggest producer of iron ore, is closer than ever to selling its $6 billion-stake in Iron Ore Company of Canada (IOC), as it hired investment bank Credit Suisse. Likely bidders include ArcelorMittal and Teck Resources. The miner, which owns 58.7% of the Canadian producer, is […]

By Cecilia Jamasmie Africa-focused Gem Diamonds (LON:GEMD) must be getting used to recovering huge precious rocks from its flagship Letšeng mine in Lesotho, as it has just dug up another massive one. The 138-carat, top white colour Type IIa diamond is 12th diamond over 100 carats the company finds this year, beating the 11 it

By Frik Els Source: Bloomberg Copper continued to decline on Tuesday to touch its lowest in 13 months after disappointing economic numbers from top consumer China and the possibility of an averted strike at the world’s biggest mine conspired to push the price of the orange metal lower. Copper fell 2% to $2.6770 a pound

By Cecilia Jamasmie China’s Ganfeng Lithium, one of the world’s top producers of the battery metal, has bought Chilean producer SQM’s 50% stake in the Cauchari-Olaroz project, located in Argentina’s Jujuy Province. The $87.5-million deal gives the Chinese miner a 37.5% ownership in the brine project, slated to begin production in 2020, with the rest

By Cecilia Jamasmie While lithium and potash are often found in the same deposits and mined together, analysts believe the increasing number of companies racing to produce the white metal, key ingredient for making batteries that power electric vehicles (EVs) and high tech devices, won’t have an impact in the potash market. Not all brine-based

By Cecilia Jamasmie The use of lithium-ion batteries by automakers is expected grow seven-fold by 2025, helped mainly by their dropping costs as well as by subsidies and incentives in many countries, particularly in China, to encourage sales of electric vehicles (EVs) According to Will Adams, Metal Bulletin’s Head of Research for the battery materials,

By Valentina Ruiz Leotaud Copper is not only a hot commodity right now. It was very much so in the c. 3rd millennium BC. Two new studies published in the Journal of Archaeological Science unveil where ancient Egyptians got the red metal from. According to one the studies, led by Frederik Rademakers of KU Leuven

By Cecilia Jamasmie Chile’s owned Codelco, the world’s No.1 copper producer, has approved a scaled-back version of an ambitious, but necessary plan to convert its open pit Chuquicamata mine into an underground operation. Century-old Chuquicamata, the company’s second largest copper operation by size, is running out of profitable ore and has to switch to an

By Michael Allan McCrae While the Canadian unemployment rate dropped to a four-decade low at 5.8% in July, the resource sector actually gave up jobs in during the same month says Statistics Canada in its Labour Force Survey released today. Employment rose by 54,000 last month driven by gains in part-time work. Employment rose in

By Michael Allan McCrae The Graphmada Large Flake Graphite Mine in eastern Madagascar is processing 500 tonnes per month, says owner Bass Metals in a news statement released Wednesday. The plant reached and sustained 25 tonnes per hour feed rate at an average head grade of 4.5% total graphitic carbon, achieving the processing plant’s nameplate