Once the darlings of the local market, BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto now face a rocky road as investors accept the reality that lower iron ore prices will last for longer.

David Murray, the man charged with running the Future Fund for the past six years has used his last day in the job to lambast the carbon tax, labelling it the "worst" economic initiative he has seen.

BHP Billiton has bought up several exploration tenements near its Olympic Dam mine in South Australia.

BlueScope Steel has been slammed after paying execs millions of dollars in bonuses as it lays off workers. Australia's biggest company is keen to hire workers sacked by BlueScope Steel.

As buyers yesterday drove the sharemarket 2.6 per cent higher, strategists told clients the market could throw up "outstanding" opportunities until the end of the year after the recent rout,

Gloucester Coal increased its fourth quarter sales by 16 per cent from a year earlier.

BHP Billiton is good for the Australian pscyhe. Source: The Australian IN THE "good old days" a billion dollars used to be really worth, well, a billion dollars - these days it seems you are only talking real money when you talk trillions. Back in those

COAL seam gas protesters have accused the prime minister of being too gutless to talk to them about an industry they say is a threat to Australia's food security. Julia Gillard attended a community forum at Ipswich, southwest of Brisbane today, but avoided 30 rowdy protesters by going in and out a back door. Waving placards reading "Can't eat coal, can't drink gas", the protesters had hoped to pressure Ms Gillard over a moratorium on CSG projects until environmental effects are better understood.