Sibanye logs steep rise in half-year profit, mulls platinum mines future

Workers at BHP Billiton Ltd. (BHP)’s Escondida copper mine, the world’s biggest, began striking as coal miners at the company’s Australian operations prepared to escalate industrial action. The strike by all union members at the northern Chilean mine began at 8 p.m. New York time yesterday with the changing of a shift and will run through to 8 p.m. today, which may lead to about 3,000 metric tons of lost copper production, union leader Jose Vidal said by telephone. Image of BHP's Escondida mine is by BHP Billiton.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg who has a personal fortune of some $18 billion joined with the environmental lobby group Sierra Club on Thursday in a $50 million, four-year plan to cut one-third of US coal-fired power plants. "If we are going to get serious about reducing our carbon footprint in the United States, we have to get serious about coal, " Bloomberg said. Rolling Stone reported that he was standing on a boat on the Potomac river not far from a 60-year old coal-fired power station to drive his message home.

Cliffs Natural Resources’ plans to restart coal mining operations at its Pinnacle coal mine in West Virginia after a major setback with regulatory agencies turning down its remediation plan to address the carbon monoxide detected in the mine. The company had to shut down operations at the underground mine in late May after high levels of the poisonous gas were detected.

Eleven firms have been pre-qualified for a concession to manage the Mui Basin coal deposits in Kitui and construct coal-fired power plants as the government steps up efforts to reduce the country's reliance on hydro electricity. The investors, drawn from South Africa, Japan and China are expected to submit proposals to explore and develop the coal resources in four blocks covering an area of 500 square km in parts of Eastern Kenya.

COAL seam gas protesters have accused the prime minister of being too gutless to talk to them about an industry they say is a threat to Australia's food security. Julia Gillard attended a community forum at Ipswich, southwest of Brisbane today, but avoided 30 rowdy protesters by going in and out a back door. Waving placards reading "Can't eat coal, can't drink gas", the protesters had hoped to pressure Ms Gillard over a moratorium on CSG projects until environmental effects are better understood.

South Africa's Environmental Affairs department on Wednesday defended granting Coal of Africa approval to resume construction at the controversial Vele opencast project near Mapungubwe, saying science, not emotion, was behind the decision. Mapungubwe is a World Heritage site and home of the golden rhino figurine (pictured) that dates back to around 1000 AD when Southern Africa's earliest kingdom flourished. Construction of the mine were halted in August last year when it was discovered the Australian company did not comply with aspects of environmental management laws.

The recent Chilean mine disaster has sparked new fresh debate in China regarding work safety and rescue work in the domestic mining industry. China has made huge steps to improve mine safety in recent years, reducing the number of deaths to approximately 2,600 in 2009 from 7,000 in 2003 even though coal output has more than doubled.

India's coal ministry has warned a group of six companies, including the local unit of the world's largest steel producer ArcelorMittal (MT.AE), to expedite work on developing a coal block jointly given to them, or face having the allocation cancelled.

Western Japan's electricity supply will fall 1.2 percent short of forecast peak demand for August, as five regional utilities' efforts to boost supply could not offset unplanned shutdowns this month of a nuclear reactor and a coal-fired plant, Japan's trade ministry said on Wednesday. Image of Fukushima Daiichi NPP in 2002 is from KEI.