Coal India, Gov’t unfairly snapped up lands for mine expansions — Amnesty

Mongolia's state-owned miner Erdenes Tavan Tolgoi (TT) has agreed to sell $250 million worth of coal from the east Tsankhi deposit to Aluminium Corp of China Ltd (Chalco) , a move insiders said was aimed at raising cash to help fund its impending listing fees. Under the agreement, Chalco would resell 30 percent of the coal to Japanese trading houses Itochu Corp and Mitsui as well as state-owned Korea Resources Corp (KORES), Erdenes TT LLC said in a statement seen on Wednesday.

Shri Beni Prasad Verma, Union Minister for Steel, said that India will become the world's second largest producer of steel by 2013.

FLSmidth has been awarded a contract worth approximately EUR 25m (approximately DKK 180m) by Jhabua Power Ltd. for the supply and installation of the first phase of a 1,800 tons per hour coal handling plant for their upcoming power plant project at Jhabua in the state of Madhya Pradesh in central India.

Patriot Coal Corporation (NYSE: PCX) today reported its financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2011. For the 2011 second quarter, the Company reported record revenues of $632.2 million and record EBITDA of $70.2 million. Revenues and EBITDA for the year-ago quarter were $539.0 million and $40.6 million, respectively. For the six months ended June 30, 2011, the Company reported revenues of $1.2 billion and EBITDA of $118.8 million. Revenues and EBITDA for the first half of 2010 were $1.0 billion and $85.8 million, respectively.

The US government has approved a new wireless communication system from Lockheed Martin that enables trapped miners and rescue workers to communicate during a disaster as safe to use in mines.

A landmark victory in the Federal Court looks set to give unions more power to bargain on behalf of workers at Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton iron ore operations in the Pilbara. The full bench of the court has ruled that a non-union collective agreement covering workers in Rio Tinto's operations was invalid. Yesterday's decision casts doubt on similar agreements at BHP and other operations in the mining region, involving thousands of workers.

Australia's Whitehaven Coal reported a 48 percent rise in equity coal output in the June quarter versus the same period a year ago and said it expects to show a fiscal 2011 underlying net profit of A$70 million before significant items.

Macarthur Coal, the mining group that is the target of a $4.7 billion takeover bid by US energy company Peabody Energy and steel giant ArcelorMittal, has suffered a steep slide in sales a result of wet weather. Macarthur's sales in the June quarter tumbled 22.5%, with its annual sales down 26.5% to 3.9 million tonnes. Peabody and Arcelor have sweetened the deal following a couple of failed attempts in the past three years and is set to complete due diligence at the end of the week.

CDE have announced the addition of Pilot Crushtec to their global distributor network with responsibility for South Africaand sub-SaharanAfrica. Pilot Crushtec will promote the full range of CDE washing equipment including the Evowash sand washing plant, Prograde screens, M2500 mobile washing plant, Rotomax logwashers and Aquacycle thickeners.