Canadians spent over $32bn in mining acquisitions in first half of 2016

Sixteen miners died and another 10 were missing after a nighttime explosion in a coal mine in the Lugansk region in eastern Ukraine, the emergencies ministry said on Friday. As a result of the early Friday accident, two more workers received burn injuries and were hospitalized, the ministry said in a statement.

Diversified miner Teck Resources doubled its quarterly profit on higher copper and coal prices, the company announced on Thursday. Teck said it brought in $756 million in profits in the second quarter of 2011, a 90 percent increase from the same period in 2010, or $1.12 a share compared to 59 cents per share in Q2 2010. President and CEO Don Lindsay attributed the doubling of profits to higher prices for coal and copper — the company's chief commodities — along with a US$2 billion rights offering in July that cashed up the company to the tune of $3.4 billion. Photo of Teck's Elkview operation in southeastern British Columbia, by Teck Resources Limited.

Federal regulators say they issued citations for safety violations at 12 coal mines in June.

China Briefing News reports state-owned Shenhua, the leader of a joint Chinese, Mongolian, Russian, and US consortium awarded the western block of Mongolia's Tavan Tolgoi coking coal field – the world's largest – faces a rocky road ahead to bring the project to fruition. According to CBN the political structuring is typical but none of the three operators have given public explanations as to how they may proceed or even work together. While losing bidders from Brazil, India and South Korea are smarting, Japan have gone so far as to call the bidding process'extremely regrettable'. And all this while Mongolia hopes to raise as much as $5 billion privatizing Tavan Tolgoi early next year.

The Huntington News reports Thursday two protesters associated with the portentous Radical Action for Mountain People's Survival Campaign, continue to occupy trees within the Bee Tree surface mine's blasting zone, where they have stopped mining for eight days.   The Bee Tree mine is situated on the aptly named Coal River Mountain in West Virginia and is owned by Alpha Resources, the company that bought the original owners of the mine, Massey Energy which last year was responsible for the worst US mine disaster in 40-years after keeping fraudulent safety records.

CONSOL Energy, a diversifed fuel producer in the Eastern United States, reported adjusted net income of $174 million or 76 cents per diluted share, in the quarter ended June 30, 2011, an increase of 69% from the adjusted net income of $103 million for the quarter ended June 30, 2010. The financial results were aided largely by the coal division, which posted record revenue of $1.212 billion. This was the fifth consecutive quarter of record revenue for the coal division.

The Province of Alberta and Swan Hills Synfuels are advancing a clean gas for clean power project that will dramatically reduce emissions by capturing and sequestering over 1.3 million tonnes per year of CO2. The province has executed a letter of intent with Swan Hills Synfuels to provide a $285 million grant in support of this carbon capture and storage project.

Universal Coal (ASX: UNV) has moved to a direct 40% ownership of the Berenice Coking Coal Project and the Somerville project in South Africa, post the completion of the first phase of drilling and the updated resource estimate - which was completed by GEMECS. The significance of the ownership for Universal Coal is that Berenice hosts a coking coal JORC Resource of over one billion tonnes, with 218 million tonnes Indicated and 840 million tonnes Inferred.

Despite a flurry of mergers and acquisitions and a robust IPO market reports out on Wednesday suggest that fear is slowly replacing greed in the mining finance business. The Financial Post reports for investment bankers, the low-hanging fruit is long gone and the biggest financings are now high-risk: gold juniors in Africa, coal in Colombia and an infamous Quebec lithium play that overstated its resource. Global Mining Finance's July round-up says untrustworthy financial and resource reporting, threats of new royalty regimes, "super-profit" and carbon taxes, political turmoil, strikes and government takeovers are worrying resource investors all around the world.