Huge blasts at Chinese port disrupts iron ore, oil shipments

The Daily Mercury reports Rio Tinto executive director Sam Walsh says the mining industry has to live with the new resources tax as the best deal that could be done with the current government. The final tax rate had been reduced from 40% to an effective 22.5% rate in the minerals resource rent tax (MRRT), he told the meeting organised by the American Chamber of Commerce in Australia. At a breakfast meeting in Perth on Tuesday, Mr Walsh defended his company's role in closing the tax deal, saying junior miners left out of final negotiations now have a chance to have their concerns heard. On top of the MMRT, Australian miners also have to contend with a proposed carbon tax set to kick in mid-2012.

India infrastructure giant GVK on Saturday said it would pay $1.3 billion for Australia's Hancock Prospecting coal, rail and port projects and spend a further $10 billion developing them as it lines up energy supplies for upcoming power plants. Hancock's owner and richest woman in the world, Georgina Hope Rinehart will join GVK Power's board and retain a 21% stake in the mines. Rinehart, 57, is predicted to become the world’s richest person as the coal projects and Hancock's massive 100%-owned iron ore mines start producing by 2014 and earn her annual profits of as much as $10 billion. The so-called queen of iron ore who inherited a debt-ridden mining company from her father 20 years ago had already doubled her wealth from 2010 before Saturday's deal.

The China Post reports Mongolia's National Security Council has rejected a deal struck with foreign firms to develop the western block of Tavan Tolgoi in the South Gobi desert, the world’s largest deposit of high-quality coking coal used in steelmaking. Metallurgical coal has been trading at record levels of $330/tonne this year and the news is a blow to US mining giant Peabody Energy, China's Shenhua and a Russian-Mongolian consortium that were announced as winners in July. At the time the losing bidders from Brazil, India and South Korea were smarting and Japan went so far as to call the bidding process 'extremely regrettable'. Mongolia was hoping to privatize its Erdenes Tavan Tolgoi coal-mining company which controls the remainder of the 6 billion tonne resource for $3 billion next year.

South Wales Chief Constable Peter Vaughan called the unfortunate outcome of the search-and-rescue operation on Friday “the one that none of us wanted,” because police had held out hope of finding some of the miners alive. It is Britain’s worst fatal mining accident in years. Officials do not know what caused the accident at the Gleision Colliery near Swansea, in south Wales, an area once synonymous with coal mining, but where the industry all but disappeared since Britain’s labor strife of the 1980s.

Xinhua News reports the mining operations of China National Coal in Shaanxi Province, the country's coal heartland, were ordered suspended after eight miners were confirmed dead in a colliery flooding on Saturday. Officials said the flooding exposed "serious problems" in the implementation of safety measures and the company would only resume operations after an overhaul. State-owned ChinaCoal is the country's second largest coal producer at 154 million tonnes/year. Due to a paucity of gas and oil China relies on coal for 70% of its energy needs and government analysts expect annual coal demand to reach at least 4 billion metric tons by 2020 even after taking into account unprecedented levels of investment in nuclear, wind, solar, and hydro. Official statistics show the death rate per million metric tons of coal produced stood at 2.63 in 2010.

Kentucky power companies Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities said on Friday new, stricter, federal environmental regulations will force them to retire three older, coal-fired power plants and recoup the $4 billion in EPA compliance costs through future price hikes for customers. A recent industry-sponsored study showed the US coal ash industry could suffer $110bn in lost economic activity and cut 300,000 jobs over the next 20 years under the new rules and between 50,000Mw and 70,000Mw of coal-fired power generation throughout US could be retired. The three Kentucky plants being shut down supplied less than 800Mw of power. One megawatt powers about 1,000 homes.

Euroenews reports that two bodies were found by rescuers who are trying to reach trapped miners in an underground coal mine in south Wales. On Thursday morning, water flooded the hillside colliery near Cilybebyll where seven miners were working. Three miners managed to escape while four remained underground. Divers have been trying to reach the workers but debris in the water is making progress difficult.

Western Australia’s manufacturing sector is losing nearly 150 jobs per day as workers chase high wages in mining.

Preliminary estimates from Metals Economics Group’s (MEG) Corporate Exploration Strategies (CES) study indicate that 2011 nonferrous exploration budgets will exceed $17 billion for expenditures related to precious and base metals, diamonds, uranium, and some industrial minerals.