The Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan bankers must have been sweating in the London hotel room on Tuesday night where their client, the Xstrata boss Mick Davis, vented his frustration that news of his $US90 billion ($83 billion) deal with Glencore had leaked out last week.

Writing in the Business Day, Clancy Yeates launches a scathing attack on Australia's mining industry. Comparing Australia to Greece would be patently ridiculous to most people. Sure, things here are hardly perfect. But no one would dispute that the debt-stricken nation is another league, with increasingly bitter protests over budget cuts required as part of last week's deal with its creditors. Despite these vast differences, conflating Australia's situation with that of Greece is exactly what some in the business community are carelessly doing.

Australia cut its forecast for coking coal production in fiscal 2012 as recovery from natural disasters takes longer than expected but lifted its projection for iron ore production a touch.

Sovereign risk issues are slowing BHP's alumina project in Guinea. BHP Billiton is spending money hand over fist expanding its global production capacity.

A large Queensland pastoral farm used for wagyu cattle breeding is set to become a coal mine after Australian Agricultural Company (AAC) agreed to sell a property to mining company Xstrata. The global miner will pay $21.6 million cash for the 17,474-hectare Meteor Downs property without any cattle or machinery. Image is from Cyrille BERNIZET