Sibanye may close loss-making Cooke 4 mine, puts 2,500 jobs on the line

The value of mergers and acquisitions in the mining sector more than doubled to $96.3 billion in the first six months of the year and could top $200 billion for the whole of 2011 says a new research report. Canadian companies – both as acquirers and as the targets of buyers – dominated corporate finance activity in the first half shaking on more than a deal a day and at 325 deals accounting for almost two-thirds of all the metals and minerals transactions carried out around the world.

Indonesia’s huge reserves of thermal coal — used for power plants — are being aggressively targeted by energy-hungry China and India. The demand, combined with high commodities prices, is driving a resources boom in remote Indonesian provinces, and creating billions of dollars in personal wealth.

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.

A freeze on licenses to explore for minerals is no small matter in Mongolia, a country undergoing a huge resources boom, as miners such as Anglo-Australian giant Rio Tinto (RIO) and the Chinese-backed Shenhua Group compete for the right to extract coal, copper, gold, molybdenum, and uranium. It is a resource play that is expected to bring a flood of money into the impoverished country over the next decade, centered around huge mining projects such as the Shivee Ovoo and Tavan Tolgoi coal reserves, estimated to be worth $300 billion and $400 billion, respectively, and the copper and gold mine Oyu Tolgoi, worth some $300 billion. (Image is of the Nadaam Festival, traditional Mongolian wrestling in Central Mongolia. Photograph by Oksana Perkins taken on July 10, 2009 / Shutterstock.com.)

About 150 000 South African coal workers seeking 14% wage increases plan to walk off the job from Sunday in a strike that could dent exports and hurt power supplies in Africa's largest economy. Hundreds of thousands of union workers have downed tools in recent weeks, or are threatening to do so, seeking raises double or triple the 5% inflation rate in the mid-year bargaining session known locally as "strike season".

A large Queensland pastoral farm used for wagyu cattle breeding is set to become a coal mine after Australian Agricultural Company (AAC) agreed to sell a property to mining company Xstrata. The global miner will pay $21.6 million cash for the 17,474-hectare Meteor Downs property without any cattle or machinery. Image is from Cyrille BERNIZET

BHP Billiton will continue to source workers through external agencies despite a recent legal stoush over a rogue employment scam. The mining giant was forced to take legal action through an arm of the United Nations earlier this year to combat a scam

Watch this documentary about two of the biggest draglines ever built. The Captain was the first of the big draglines, built by Marion Power Shovel for the Captain Mine in Illinois. It was then rivalled by the Big Muskie, owned by the Central Ohio Coal Company.

Rio Tinto is disappointed with the Australian government's carbon tax proposal, warning it will inevitably hinder investment and jobs growth in Australia without reducing global carbon emissions. Rio Tinto believes the government's carbon tax will undermine Australia's international competitiveness and hurt the nation's export competing industries.