Frik Els , Editor

The Sowetan reports Tanzania will begin uranium mining in its southern Selous Game Reserve, Africa’s second-largest wildlife sanctuary and a Unesco heritage site (pictured), the energy minister said Tuesday. Australia’s Mantra Resources will start mining in late 2012 in the southern part of the 54,600-square kilometre park estimated to have 53.9 million pounds of uranium oxide deposits which is worth some $2.9bn at current market prices. The minister claimed that mining would only involve about 1% of the park's overall area and that income accrued from mining would help fund upkeep of the park, but environmentalists have slammed the plan.

Agence France Presse reports Argentina is promoting the idea of an OPEC-like cartel for itself, Bolivia and Chile – which together control 85% of the world's reserves of lithium – to manage prices and limit overproduction. A ton of lithium, worth around $2,500 in 2004, now sells for more than $6,000 and its greatest use is expected to be in electric vehicles: if electric cars achieve a 5% penetration rate by 2020, 60,000 tons of lithium will be needed to fill the demand according to one analyst but recycling would reduce demand for virgin materials.

South Africa's Pilanesberg Platinum mining operations remain halted more than a week after employees of a contractor disrupted operations through intimidation of supervisors, industrial action and damage to property and equipment. The company said in a statement released on Monday its concentrator has operated at full capacity throughout and produced a record amount of metal in June. Platmin has lost a tenth of its value on the Toronto bourse since halting operations and is down more than 40% over the last twelve months. The mid-tier producer has a market capitalization of some $510m.

Madagascar Oil's annual report released on Thursday shows the company is scuttling its project with French giant Total to develop a 1.2bn barrel oil sand deposit on the island after three years of extensive work. The Bemolanga bitumen deposit adjacent the Tsingy de Bemaraha nature reserve (pictured) was first drilled in the late 1800s and would have cost upwards of $8bn to bring into operation. Madagascar Oil has been through a torrid six months – after raising $80m in its debut on the London AIM market in December the stock was suspended in March after the company declared a force majeure over threats of expropriation by the Malagasy governments of its other oil field Tsimororo. When it resumed trading this week the stock promptly lost 50% and has not recovered since.

MarketWatch reports gold futures lost ground in electronic trading Friday as the dollar strengthened against major rivals. Gold for August delivery declined $16.70, or 1.1%, to $1,486.10 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. A stronger greenback tends to discourage investment in dollar-priced commodities such as gold. The precious metal was also pushed lower as some uncertainty about the euro zone’s debt problems lifted. Despite the recent weakness, gold prices remain over 5% higher this year. Silver followed gold lower Friday, dropping close to 3%.

Timmins Gold Corp. reported an annual net profit of $11.5m for 2011, the first year of commercial operations of its San Francisco gold project in Mexico. The nine cent a share profit on revenues of $84.3m reported Thursday compared with a net loss of $8.6m last year when the company's income was zero. The company expects to average annual gold production of approximately 100,000 ounces at base case life of mine cash costs of US$489 per ounce. Timmins moved to the Toronto main board in March where it is worth some $137m.

The stock of cobalt and copper miner Metorex is up by a third this year following Brazilian giant Vale's $1.1bn bid for the mid-tier producer. With reports surfacing that Jinchuan, China's biggest nickel miner, is readying a competing offer shareholders of the Johannesburg-based company look set to extract further value ahead of a vote on July 22. Metorex has aggressive expansion plans for its central and Southern African projects and aims to more than double its current annual copper output of around 50,000 tonnes. It's a far cry from the situation in 2009 when the company was fighting for survival amid serious cost overruns in the Congo.

Two reports out on Thursday suggest better times ahead for the uranium mining industry. The Globe and Mail quotes Tim Gitzel the new chief executive of Cameco Corp. – the world’s largest producer – who is taking the job on Friday as saying the current slump in uranium prices is a chance for the company to take another look at acquisitions. The Financial Post reports that RBC Capital Markets believe uranium price weakness will be shortlived and that China, India and South Korea are maintaining their nuclear build plans while Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Vietnam have all announced new nuclear plans.

The Dar es Salaam Citizen reports Tanzanite One Mining, the dominant miner of the rare gemstone only found in the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro, has been ordered to increase the minimum wage for its employees from Sh180,000 to Sh350,000 per month (roughly US$215) as directed by the government. London-listed Tanzanite One has returned to profitability as prices for the gems which usually follow that of rough diamonds improve post-recession and is embarking on an expansion strategy, acquiring an Australian sapphire project earlier in June and reshuffling its board.

The value of Canada's oilsands grew by 2,220% to $441bn from $19bn between 1990 and 2009, according to a Statistics Canada study released on Tuesday. That put the value of crude bitumen from the oilsands higher than the value of coal, crude oil and natural gas combined. In 1990, oil sands reserves under active development amounted to around 500m cubic metres; by 2008, they had increased eight-fold to 4,300m cubic metres, thanks to improvements in extraction technology, new discoveries and an increase in the global demand for crude oil.