Materials technology group Umicore is to increase significantly its production capacity for germanium semi-conductor substrates for use in high-efficiency solar cells. Umicore will also invest in the expansion of its capacity for lithium-ion battery materials. The combined investment level is expected to reach some € 45 million. The new production capacity for germanium wafers is [...]

Fortescue Metals Group continued its successful and meteoric progress (IM,  April 2008) in May. The first ore on ship (FOOS) was achieved as scheduled on May 15, marking a significant milestone for the project and importantly signalled the commencement of cash flow.

World marketed energy consumption is projected to grow by 50% between 2005 and 2030, driven by robust economic growth and expanding populations in the world’s developing countries, according to the reference case projection from the International Energy Outlook 2008 (IEO2008) released by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). 

 This inaugural meeting is to explore integrated management and use of vector, image, and other raster data. International speakers will share experiences with using remotely sensed data in geospatial production and maintenance. National mapping agencies, state and local government, explorers and university educators are among the groups that will attend the 2008 ESRI Remote Sensing and [...]

In a stark reminder of the dangerous nature of deep level gold mining in South Africa. Gold Fields is rightly proud of its Kloof gold mine, near Westonaria on the West Rand, which today achieved one million fatality-free shifts. However, put in context, that is just 50 days without a fatality. Many mines in other parts [...]

Gold Reserve reports that it was invited to a meeting held on June 18, 2008 with the Venezuelan Ministry of Environment (”MinAmb”), led by Vice Minister of Environmental Planning and Administration, Ing. Merly Garcia and assisted by legal advisor Dra. Lucy Vidal. Crystallex International also attended the meeting. According to Vice Minister Garcia, the objective of [...]

Thirty-three of Australia’s next generation of mining engineers demonstrated the innovations of the future at the annual “Mission Impossible 2008 - CRCMining Equipment Design Challenge”. After much deliberation by a specialist panel of CRCMining judges, ‘The Turbines’ emerged victorious by a small margin of three points over the second placed team. Their machine design, the [...]

Latest issue of International Mining Project News available (June 20): It’s been another busy fortnight for the iron ore players in the wake of newly negotiated price hikes across the globe, while there has also been more nickel activity than in previous weeks despite the stainless steel additive failing to claw back recent price losses. [...]

Underground coal mine operators are moving aggressively to comply with the Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response (MINER) Act of 2006 at the same time as they voluntarily push to formalise new risk management practices designed to help the industry identify, eliminate and manage conditions and practices that have the greatest potential to cause injury, [...]

Water is one of the major features in International Mining’s July issue - managing it, delivering it, saving it. Over in Australia, a new water truck system that is safe, sustainable and reliable has been developed at Rio Tinto Coal Australia’s (RTCA) Mount Thorley Warkworth (MTW) mine. “The new system uses up to a third [...]

Susanne Cooper and Nick Fleming* of SKM note that “sustainability is not just a political buzz word used to satisfy the concerns of stakeholders or environmentalists; it is critical to the success and longevity of projects. Sustainability principles are now broadly accepted by project teams as a useful compass to guide planning and design decisions. [...]

A report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC),  Mine As good as it gets?, shows that while revenues of the top 40 mining companies grew by 32% in 2007, costs increased by 38%, thereby reducing margins. The fifth annual report provides a comprehensive analysis of the financial performance and position of the global mining industry and also discusses [...]