Ex-banker’s home said to be raided in UK Rio Tinto probe

Sunday's Financial Times asks the question: Has the age of “peak steel” – in which world steel annual output and demand reaches a plateau at about its current level of 1.5bn-1.6bn tonnes – finally arrived?

Hong Kong's Honbridge Holdings plans to build a 420 kilometre pipeline to move iron-ore from Brazil's Minas Gerais state to the coast in stead of building a railway line for its new $3.6 billion – $4.2 billion mine.

Xstrata has delayed voting on a merger with Glencore as investors continue to dictate the offer and unions become more vocal about their concerns over the deal.

Australia's antitrust regulator has decided it would not oppose commodities trader Glencore's $26 billion takeover of miner Xstrata.

The fifth richest woman in the world, Gina Rinehart, has sold $50 million worth of her shares in Australian newspaper group Fairfax as she continues to push for a seat on the company's board.

On Wednesday, a day after after all three major global ratings agencies – Fitch, Moody's and Standard & Poor's – placed South Africa's credit rating on negative outlook, home affairs minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma became the latest senior figure in the ruling ANC party to join a growing chorus calling for state control of mining.

The export surcharge was raised on two occasions last year to 30% to keep ore inside the country for local steelmakers amid a mining ban in the state of Karnataka instated in July.  That ban is now being lifted.

Knight Vinke is looking for a ratio of 3.25:1 similar to the demands of Qatar which last week pushed the $60 billion deal to the verge of collapse.

The two-year old ban, which has effectively halved export from Karnataka, is under review at a meeting in Bangalore.