Ivanhoe Mines secures full financing for first two mines in Congo

Ivanhoe Mines' Chief Executive Officer Robert Friedland announced today that the company expects to receive US$502 million from Rio Tinto later today following Rio Tinto's decision to exercise all remaining share-purchase warrants that it holds in Ivanhoe Mines.

Bearing Resources announced that the Company has entered into an option agreement with Eastfield Resources Ltd. ("Eastfield") to earn up to a 65% interest in the 12,113 hectare Zymo copper-gold project ("Zymo"), located 45 kilometres west of the town of Smithers, British Columbia. Exploration work carried out to date at Zymo, including surface sampling, geophysical testing and core drilling has identified a large copper-gold porphyry system. Four distinct porphyry targets have been identified over an open ended nine kilometre by three kilometre area defined by a coincident copper in soil and induced polarization ("IP") chargeability anomaly.

Power supplies have returned to normal in Chile's northern mining heartland after a power grid failure hit some of the world's biggest copper mines earlier on Sunday, the mining minister said. Chilean Energy and Mining Minister Laurence Golborne told Reuters power supplies were back to "100 percent" and that the impact on production in the top global copper producer was expected to be minimal.

BNAmericas reported that Vancouver-based tailings processor Amerigo Resources has resumed operations at its Minera Valle Central complex in central Chile's region VI. The company said that the plant is once again in production, processing both fresh and old tailings from the El Teniente mine. Amerigo halted operations on June 6th 2011 as a result of the ongoing strike by 11,000 contract workers at state copper producer Codelco's El Teniente division. Amerigo's sole business is to process copper and molybdenum tailings from El Teniente, which is by far Codelco's most profitable division.

Korea Resources Corporation as says that its Boleo copper project in Mexico with Canada’s Baja Mining Corporation will begin production in 2013, supplying South Korea with about 30% of the mine’s output. The mine on Mexico’s Baja California Peninsula is expected to produce 38,000 tonnes of copper annually for 23 years starting in the H2 of 2013, according to the the Seoul based company which owns 30% of the project along with other Korean partners. Baja Mining holds the remaining 70% of the mine.

Lumina Copper and Lumina Royalty announced that they have closed their previously announced arrangement. Under the terms of a statutory plan of arrangement which received shareholder approval on June 7, 2011 (the "Plan of Arrangement"), the shareholders of Lumina Copper (the "Shareholders") each received, as a distribution in respect of a reduction of capital, one common share of Lumina Royalty for each common share of Lumina Copper

Zambia's finance minister said on Thursday that audits had highlighted tax "issues" with Konkola Copper Mines (KCM), owned by London-listed Vedanta Resources (VED.L:Quote), and Canada's First Quantum Minerals (FM.TO: Quote) in addition to Glencore's (GLEN.L:Quote) subsidiary in the country.

Heatherdale Resources announced that it has closed the previously announced non-brokered private placement of 11,314,255 units of its capital at a price of $0.83 per unit for gross cash proceeds of $9,390,831. Each unit consists of one common share and one warrant entitling the holder to purchase an additional common share at a price of $1.20 for a period of 18 months from the closing of the private placement. The common shares and warrants comprising the units are subject to a four month hold period from the closing date, which hold period expires on October 15, 2011.

Mining Weekly reports Zambia is keen to diversify its mining sector and wants more exploration in iron-ore, manganese, coal and uranium, Vice-President George Kunda said on Wednesday. Speaking at a mining conference in Lusaka, Kunda said that the Zambian economy was too dependent on copper. Zambia aims to be the third-largest uranium producer in Africa in the near future, Kunda said, adding that this would depend on exploration and investment.