Frik Els , Editor

Bloomberg reports BHP workers in Chile voted Sunday to extend their strike at the world’s largest copper mine. Stoppages at BHP’s Australian coal operations may resume this week. Thirty thousand South African coal mine workers including Anglo American and Xstrata employees walked off the job Sunday and may be joined by 160,000 gold industry workers. Strikes that started over the weekend are impacting output from mines of diamond giant De Beers. Workers are seeking a larger slice as global producers report record earnings: Melbourne-based BHP, the world’s biggest mining company, is expected to report full-year profits of $22.5 billion next month, almost double 2010’s net income. Xstrata may report record 2011 profit of $7.3 billion and Anglo American $7.4 billion, estimates show.

Stocks of Canadian potash juniors Allana, Passport and Western Potash all showed double digit gains for the week to Thursday as the heavyweight producers all announce significant contract price gains and their export arm appears to run out of inventories altogether. This after Bloomberg quoted the CEO of Mosaic as saying the Canpotex "cupboard is bare" and that the sensitive issue of fertilizer deliveries to India's 55 million farmers is not being discussed at the moment.

Two reports out on Thursday suggest that iron ore is far from being merely a relic of the industrial revolution and still plays a central role in the world economy and the commodities markets. Reuters reports top investment bank Goldman Sachs is preparing to enter the physical iron ore market and the FT says the so-called commodities bible – Cyclope’s World Commodity Yearbook – just published in English is a testament to how the pricing of iron ore from secretive negotiations and annual contracts to prices linked to the spot market constitutes a “true revolution”.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg who has a personal fortune of some $18 billion joined with the environmental lobby group Sierra Club on Thursday in a $50 million, four-year plan to cut one-third of US coal-fired power plants. "If we are going to get serious about reducing our carbon footprint in the United States, we have to get serious about coal, " Bloomberg said. Rolling Stone reported that he was standing on a boat on the Potomac river not far from a 60-year old coal-fired power station to drive his message home.

SunCoke Energy, Inc. announced Thursday the pricing of the initial public offering of 11,600,000 shares of its common stock at a price of $16 per share. The shares began trading on Thursday, July 21, 2011, on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol, “SXC” and early on changed hands above $17.

Harmony Gold Mining upgraded the resource estimate for its Wafi-Golpu project in Papua New Guinea on Wednesday increasing it by 57% to over 1 billion metric tons, making it one of the highest grade copper-gold porphyry systems in South East Asia. CEO Graham Briggs said it was a "game-changing asset" for the company and the latest drilling results bring the Wafi-Golpu deposits within sight of Freeport-McMoran’s Grasberg mine across the border in West Papua, Indonesia, which was recently hit by strikes.

When news broke Thursday last week that China was raising REE export quotas for the second half of the year, ostensibly in reaction to a WTO ruling, it was greeted with some surprise and a measure of relief by the makers of anything from iPods to lasers to stealth helicopters. But as the implications of the announcement on future pricing of the 17 elements begin to sink in some analysts are pointing out that rather than easing the pressure on manufacturers who need rare earths, China's move was aimed at cutting off at the knees development of mining projects outside its borders.

Employees of diamond mining company De Beers are set to go on strike on Friday after wage talks broke down on Wednesday. The workers follow tens of thousands of others in South Africa's coal, metals and petroleum industries who have been on strike for weeks. The strikes come at a time when the country's mining output is slowing and new investment in the industry is drying up amid uncertainty about state ownership, taxation, an ever-changing regulatory environment and corruption. A recent ranking of top global mining investment destinations that puts Alberta at the top relegates South Africa to number 63 alongside Zimbabwe, Guatamala and Venezuela.

South Africa's Environmental Affairs department on Wednesday defended granting Coal of Africa approval to resume construction at the controversial Vele opencast project near Mapungubwe, saying science, not emotion, was behind the decision. Mapungubwe is a World Heritage site and home of the golden rhino figurine (pictured) that dates back to around 1000 AD when Southern Africa's earliest kingdom flourished. Construction of the mine were halted in August last year when it was discovered the Australian company did not comply with aspects of environmental management laws.

Thunder Bay-based Zenyatta Ventures has ended its dispute with Constance Lake First Nation after the leadership of the 1,470-strong community decided to no longer pursue a motion of injunction against the junior explorer in exchange for better co-operation and preferential job opportunities. Zenyatta can now advance its Albany project south of the so-called Ring of Fire in the James Bay lowlands where it is exploring for nickel and platinum group metals with a purported value in excess of $1 billion.