Canadian miner starts exploring Czech/German copper-cobalt project

Al Jazeera reports that metal theft in England is widespread, and a British railway authority says that metal theft has cost them milllions.

Chile's state copper company Codelco, the world's top producer, announced today that it has used its rights to exercise its disputed option to buy a 49 percent stake in global miner Anglo American's southern Chilean properties.

2011 will go down as the year when the wind fell out of the sails of economic recovery and serious storm clouds gathered on the horizon.

If 2010 was the year of rising commodity prices, 2011 was the year of The Deal.

The year of peak construction activity at Oyu Tolgoi mine in the Gobi desert of Mongolia (IM April and May issues this year) is nearing its end, with the project approximately three-quarters complete.

Most commodities, except for the heavyweights gold and oil, are poised for a down year in 2011, the first fall for this sector since the financial crisis hit in 2008.

Three Chinese companies are part of consortiums that have bagged Rs 1,800-crore worth of five contracts awarded by state-owned Hindustan Copper to raise its production four-fold to 12 million tonnes over the next five years.

Formerly called “The Disputed One,” Anglo American’s Los Bronces mine located northeast of Santiago, Chile, is living up to its name. The operation, which is expected to become the world's fifth-biggest copper mine, is at the heart of the ongoing legal dispute between the London-based global miner and Chile’s Codelco, the world’s largest copper producer.