Infomine

By Cecilia Jamasmie Anglo American’s De Beers shocked the diamond market on Tuesday by announcing it will start selling jewellery containing man-made diamonds rather than precious stones recovered from the ground, for the first time in its 130-year history. The historic shift for the world’s No.1 diamond producer, which vowed never to sell synthetic stones, […]

By Frik Els The price of platinum stayed above $900 an ounce on New York futures markets on Monday as it attempts to recover from levels last seen in January 2016 struck last week. Platinum is trading near a record discount of $400 an ounce against gold and its lacklustre performance compares to sister metal

By Cecilia Jamasmie Authorities from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu have ordered the permanent closure of the country’s largest copper smelter, controlled by Vedanta Resources (LON:VED), after a new round of violent protests against the plant ended last week with police killing 13 people. Locals disapprove the expansion of the group’s Sterlite Copper

By Cecilia Jamasmie Australian iron ore producer Fortescue Metals Group (ASX:FMG) is going ahead with its plans to build a new $1.3 billion mine in the Pilbara region, which will lift the grade of its ores and so satisfy the new demands of its biggest customer, China, which is increasingly asking for higher quality ore

By Valentina Ruiz Leotaud Scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory discovered a first-of-its-kind copper and graphite combination that, they say, could have implications for improving the energy efficiency of lithium-ion batteries. The discovery took place after they bombarded graphite in an ultra-high vacuum environment with ions to create surface defects. Copper was

By Valentina Ruiz Leotaud Hundreds of environmentalists, as well as members of religious organizations and Indigenous groups hailing from different communities in the Mexican municipality of Actopan, protested this week against mining development in the eastern Veracruz state. The protesters issued a press release, held a conference at a church and then marched towards the

By Valentina Ruiz Leotaud The proportion of US miners with Progressive Massive Fibrosis has grown dramatically since 1978, with a significantly accelerated rate of increase since 1996. This is according to researchers at the University of Illinois, who delved into the data of 314,176 miners applying for black lung benefits from 1970 through 2016. Of

By Frik Els A salar-size gap has opened up between bulls and bears in the lithium market. In March Morgan Stanley sent shares of lithium companies tumbling after the investment bank forecast overproduction of the battery raw material and plunging prices. Some in the industry characterized the New York bank’s assessment as little more than

By Frik Els Consulting firm McKinsey put a note out on Thursday calling attention to “three surprising resource implications from the rise of electric vehicles”. Number one is that oil & gas investors can sleep well for at least the next decade as the impact of the move away from internal combustion engines will only

By Cecilia Jamasmie Canadian junior miner CanAlaska Uranium (TSX-V:CVV) provided Thursday an update on ongoing summer work at the West McArthur uranium project, being carried by partner Cameco Corporation (TSX: CCO; NYSE: CCJ), the world’s top listed uranium producer. Work at the asset, located immediately next to Cameco’s Fox Lake uranium discovery, has been focused