Top miners squandered $200 billion during boom

Top coal consumer China should see import demand more than double in the next four years and India will be close behind as both hoover up supplies on international markets to feed rapidly growing power industries, industry executives said on Monday. China's thermal coal imports could rise to 200 million tonnes in 2015 from around 90 million tonnes in 2011, Neil Dhar, executive vice president of trading house Noble Group, told the Coaltrans Asia conference.

Engineering work has begun at a coal-fired power station on the banks of the Thames in England, UK that could turn it into the world's largest biomass plant with almost no carbon emissions. The owner of the Tilbury power station, previously scheduled for shut down in 2015 under new EU environmental regulations, says it hopes to produce up to 750 megawatts of green power by winter. Last week it was reported that the approval of new rules for air pollution, water pollution, and waste disposal in the US could result in the retirement of between 35 and 70 gigawatts (GW) of coal-fired power generation throughout that country.

Australia's government urged companies on Monday to tighten vigilance over cyber attacks launched offshore against some of the world's biggest resource firms and other businesses, warning high-tech threats were intensifying. Lockheed Martin Corp , the U.S. government's top information technology provider, raised concern about cyber hacking at the weekend, complaining of a pattern of frequent attacks on it from around the world.

The $7.1 billion merger of coal miners Massey Energy Co (MEE.N) and Alpha Natural Resources Inc (ANR.N) should be blocked or Massey's board will avoid responsibility for their reckless management, a shareholder attorney told a court on Thursday. Several pension funds that invested in Massey have sued to block the vote next week by shareholders of the two companies.

A Conference Board of Canada report says high energy and metals prices "are prompting resource companies to invest billions in iron ore projects, nickel processing and offshore oil developments" in Newfoundland and Labrador, generating the largest growth in real GDP this year of all the Canadian provinces." The board's Provincial Outlook - Spring 2011 report issued Wednesday also forecasts that Saskatchewan "will benefit from tax breaks and a hot mining industry."

Executives of Massey Energy Co (MEE.N) believed President Barack Obama had a secret agenda to bring down the coal company after 29 men were killed in an accident at one of its mines last year, a lawsuit shows. The charge came in a class action suit by investors who seek to block Massey's pending $7 billion takeover by Alpha Natural Resources Inc (ANR.N) as they press their claims for about $1 billion in losses from alleged Massey mismanagement.

In keeping with its massive expansion plans, the Maharatna firm Coal India (CIL) will induct 1,100 management trainees by October, Steel Guru reports.

The new faces will be inducted into the parent firm and its subsidiaries in various disciplines mining, electrical, mechanical, civil and chemical/mineral. The recruitment of the white-collars is necessitated as the world's top coal producer plans huge expansions, including setting up of 20 new washeries with a combined capacity of 111.1 million tonnes at an estimated cost of INR 2,500 crore.

The Green Party of New Zealand is taking aim at coal with new legislation that would make coal miners bear the brunt of their emissions. According to the Otago Daily Times: The Climate Change Response (Low Carbon Economic Development) Amendment Bill would amend the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) to ensure all new activities and industries that use lignite, are fully liable for the costs of the greenhouse gas emissions they emit. "Large scale lignite mining in Southland could see New Zealand's carbon emissions increase by as much as 10 million tonnes a year, when we already need to decrease them by more than 20 million tonnes a year," said the architect of the bill, Green MP Gareth Hughes.

The boom in resource industry wealth flowing from iron ore and coal exports to China and India has created a record number of billionaires in Australia, reports the Sydney Morning Herald. The latest to top the billionaires club Down Under is iron ore queen Gina Reinhart, who has become the richest person ever in Australia, worth an estimated $10.3 billion. Reinhart is the first woman to to top BRW's Rich 200 list. The list shows Australia now has 35 billionaires, five more than last year, and a cut-off point of $215 million, which is $30 million higher than last year's cut-off of $185 million.