Iron ore prices bounce back

Cliffs Natural Resources was down about 7% in mid-day trading after the Cleveland-based company announced plans yesterday to sell and idle its biomass production facility in Michigan. Cliffs said it will take a $30 million charge in the third quarter as a result of the decision, while adding it will make efforts to reassign the 30-odd employees of renewaFUEL to other positions in the company.

Workers in Australia and Norway are getting pay raises, and they are getting paid for staying on the job, not greater productivity.

The State of Wisconsin is being forced to weigh the age-old concerns over environmental protection versus economic development as it looks to rewrite its mine law to accomodate a huge iron ore mine in an impoverished region of the state. Asked earlier this year to shorten its environmental permitting process from 5 years to 300 days, the State is now taking a second crack at rewriting its mining legislation after draft legislation was scrapped due to public outcry regarding the secretive nature of the process. Groups opposed to the open-pit mine, which would stretch four miles along Ashland and Iron Counties, say the mine would endanger water and air quality and create an ugly scar on the landscape.

Long stretches of fertile paddy fields in villages of Navelim-Kudnem-Sankhalim in North Goa, have turned into big dusty grounds with piles of iron ore stocked on it. Locals here claim that illegal mining industry is rapidly gulping landmasses, which were earlier fertile territories.

Job growth in mining and mining-related work in Australia is expected to increase by over 100% by 2031, outpacing other sectors of the economy, The Courier-Mail is reporting. The website says the total mining workforce is tipped to more than double in the next 20 years, from an estimated 693,000 who are now directly and indirectly employed to 1.45 million staff Australia-wide:

Bloomberg reports the London Metal Exchange which handles some 80% of global trade in industrial metals futures, told members it may get a takeover offer after multiple approaches from potential bidders. The 134-year-old exchange is owned by the trading houses and banks like Barclays and JP Morgan that trade on the market which keeps fees low. Despite talk of an $1.2 billion offer as far back as 2008, it is unclear how receptive they would be to selling out after a senior executive of the exchange told Reuters in March it had no plans to change its independent status despite increasing competition, particularly in Asia.

Iron ore's 20-year price run is likely to come to an end in the next three years, according to new data from Bloomberg, with a surge in supply set to knock $50 off the price of the crucial steelmaking ingredient by 2015: Global prices may fall 29 percent to an average $123 a metric ton in 2015 from a record $173 this year, according to the median estimates of 10 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News. The decline contrasts with estimates for little change in copper and a 10 percent increase for aluminum in the same period, London Metal Exchange futures prices show.

The Hindustan Times reports that Goa's mining minister, Digambar Kamat, is being accused by the BJP party and members of his own party for participating in illegal mining. The website says the Congress is considering various options to avoid a similar situation to what happened in neighbouring Karnataka state, where the ruling BJP party was forced to dump its chief minister after a damning report accused him and other politicians of corruption in the illegal export of iron ore.

China's position as the world's economic engine is being reinforced as expectations for growth in developed markets wane, but so is the risk a decline in its appetite for metals and minerals may mean the Asian giant won't offset any Western slowdown.