Peabody Energy and White Energy have signed an agreement to pursue development of a coal upgrading plant that would be sited at a Peabody operation in America’s Powder River Basin. The plant would use White Energy’s patented coal briquetting technology, a mechanical process that upgrades lower Btu coals. The process increases the coal’s overall energy content by some [...]

Post-mining landscapes offer unique opportunities with the possibility to reshape the land from scratch. The Internationale Bauausstellung (IBA) Fürst-Pückler-Land provides a platform, September 15-17, 2009 for an interdisciplinary discussion and exchange of the capabilities and problems with the design of post-mining landscapes. The international conference Opportunity: Post-Mining Landscapes will take place on the IBA terraces, [...]

Alpha Natural Resources and Foundation Coal Holdings have announced a merger plan that will create one of America’s largest coal producers in an all-stock transaction valued at $2 billion. One of the strongest balance sheets and credit profiles in the industry show 2008 pro forma revenues of $4.2 billion. The combined company will be the third-largest [...]

Brendan Pearson, acting Chief Executive Officer of the Minerals Council of Australia (MCA) says that Australia’s national Budget “takes an important step towards reversing the imbalance between expenditure on short-term measures to boost consumption over long term capacity-building investment.” The Budget itself outlines investment of A$2 billion in carbon capture and storage over nine years; [...]

The Indonesian Government’s new Bill for Mineral and Coal Mining (Mining Law) was developed with the intention of extracting the most value from Indonesia’s natural resources for the nation, according to Wood Mackenzie. Its introduction into Indonesia’s legal system provides a framework for the future of the nation’s mining industry. The new Mining Law opens [...]

At least another 10,000 jobs will go, 16 coal mines will close and State Governments will lose substantial royalties as a direct impact of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS), according to independent analysis released by the Australian Coal Association (ACA). These job losses are in addition to thousands of coal jobs already lost since [...]

The International Council on Mining & Metals (ICMM) has released the May 2009 issue of its Good Practice newsletter: Action for a safer world. It is themed around the need for sound chemicals management and looks to the UN’s Second International Conference on Chemicals Management in Geneva, May 11-15. This will be the setting for [...]

Ore mining and processing is associated with high noise levels. Workers are exposed to a tremendous amount of noise that could lead to serious hearing impairment, if they do not wear proper ear protection. In addition, the noise generated impacts the surrounding areas. For these reasons, in addition to legislative and regulatory requirements, employers are now aiming to [...]

India’s markets are expanding, “but, says InfoMine, “there are many things to learn about the art of doing business in an environment very different from those in traditionally developed countries. The world’s largest democracy by population, India also has very active media, press and citizenry groups. A sound cultural understanding and patient overtures are important [...]

Equinox Minerals’ Lumwana Mining has signed a five year concentrate offtake agreement with Konkola Copper Mines (KCM) for annual quantities of between 70,000 and 80,000 t (dry) of concentrates from the Lumwana copper mine (IM, March 2009) with an option by mutual agreement for additional annual quantities of Lumwana copper concentrates under the same terms as the Agreement. [...]

Minova has further expanded operations at the Minova Minetek plant at Hyderabad in India with the commissioning of a second machine for the automatic production of resin capsules. The company says this demonstrates its “continuing commitment to investment in capacity and technology to support the drive by the Indian coal mining industry to increase output without [...]

A new research report released by the CPM Group predicts continued silver production and investor demand increases in 2009. The Silver Yearbook 2009 notes that investors have been turning to silver and other precious metals as a safe haven in difficult economic times and that near record increase in prices over the past few years are [...]