Frik Els , Editor

Oilsands Quest stock was trading below the rights offer price of 20c at the open on Friday after announcing it was extending a rights offer to advance its Axe Lake oil sands project in Saskatchewan a second time. The company is attempting to raise $60 million after it was forced to go it alone following a fruitless 11-month quest to find a partner or buyer.

Reuters reports 50,000 protesters battled police in Chile's capital on Thursday, the second day of a two-day strike against unpopular President Sebastian Pinera. A recent poll put the right-wing leader's approval rating at only 26%, below even that of dictator General Pinochet, who ruled the country for 17 years from 1973. The protests follows recent strikes in the copper sector over pay and a campaign against a massive coal mine on an island in Patagonia amid accusations that billionaire Pinera’s shareholding in the developer, Copec, constitutes a serious conflict of interest.

FT reports iron ore prices hit a three-month high above $180 a tonne on Thursday as supply outages and strong demand from China underpinned the steelmaking commodity. Started in 2008, derivatives trading in iron ore is up fourfold this year after setting a record in July, but he world’s top three miners – BHP Billiton, Vale and Rio Tinto – control nearly 70% of the 1 billion tonne annual seaborne trade and dominate price talks. BHP this week announced record profits on back of earnings from iron ore, its biggest division, which jumped 122% to $13.3 billion and CEO Marius Kloppers said unlike the situation in coal, global iron ore supplies are being 'overestimated'.

Interfax reports Russia state-owned diamond miner Alrosa is up 22% on the country's trading board for unlisted stocks since it was first quoted there on July 18. The price of US$31,495 per share, implies a market value of $8.6 billion. Alrosa accounts for around 25% of world output and for the full year sales of $4.7 billion is expected. The secretive firm has been feeding the market more information recently in anticipation of a 2012 public offering that seeks to raise up to $3 billion.

24/7 Wall St says the global diamond mining industry may be one of the world’s best-kept secrets and diamond mining is not unlike the oil business, where about 100 massive fields supply about half the world’s oil.

Gold for December delivery fell more than $50 to $1,710 an ounce in afternoon trade in London on Thursday, bring its losses since the record high of Monday to 10%, the worst slump since March 2008. On Wednesday, the Chicago stock exchange operator CME followed a move by the Shanghai Gold Exchange by increasing the margin requirement as a way to “ensure adequate collateral coverage.” The minimum cash deposit to borrow from brokers to trade gold futures will rise 27% to $9,450 per 100-ounce contract at the end of today. Silver slumped as much as 35% in London in about three weeks from its April 25 record of $49.79 an ounce after CME announced margin increases.

South Africa's Impala Platinum Holdings (Implats) said on Thursday that its headline earnings for the 2011 financial year rose 41% as it reaped the benefit of rising prices. The world's second-largest producer of the metal also said Thursday that it expects output in 2012 to be steady or slightly lower on the year and that costs will likely rise. Implats accounts for close to 30% of global supply of the precious metal sometimes referred to as white gold, used in vehicle emission systems to reduce pollution and for the manufacture of jewellery. Prices for platinum climbed throughout the year from just over US$1,500 per ounce to end at about US$1,800 per ounce.

Australia's Paladin Energy has signed three new uranium sale agreements with US customers for output from the stage 3 expansion of the Langer Heinrich mine in the Namib desert (pictured).

Spot gold dropped $105 an ounce, or 5.66%, to $1,753.20 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange in early afternoon trade on Wednesday, as investors booked profits and over disappointment about the precious metal's failure to breach $1,900. Losses over two trading days now top $120 – gold last hit a settlement record on Monday, when it finished at $1,891.90 an ounce. Gold has gained almost 25% from lows in early July and many analysts are holding to forecasts of $2,000 an ounce in the near term, but some producers have sounded caution.

BHP Billiton reported record annual results and beat analyst estimates in the process, after prices of copper, iron ore and coal reached all-time highs because of demand from China. Profit at the world's biggest miner surged 86% for the 12 months $23.6 billion, a full $1.4 billion ahead of expectations, on the back of earnings from iron ore, its biggest division, which jumped 122% to $13.3 billion.