Peabody Energy has teamed up with ArcelorMittal to offer $5 billion for Australia's Macarthur Coal , the world's biggest producer of pulverised coal, as demand for steel-making raw materials intensifies. The cash offer of A$15.50 a share represents a 40-percent premium to Monday's close and comes just a day after Australia unveiled a plan to tax carbon emissions from the nation's worst polluters, or about 500 companies, including coal miners.

Chile's Codelco on Monday sought to avert a 24-hour strike by workers demanding a bigger say in the restructuring of the world's top copper miner, the company's top executives said on Monday.

The end of Federal Reserve emergency cash is unlikely to derail gold's 10-year rally, but the precious metal might face a rockier road as the cheap money that had fueled its ascent dries up, at least for now.

Jun 29 (Reuters) - Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange hit its highest in nearly two months on Wednesday at $9,280 a tonne as the euro rallied on optimism Greece will be able to avert a default, after its parliament backed an austerity bill.

Belarusian Potash Company, the agent for Uralkali and Belaruskali, has sold potash to two Chinese fertiliser importers at prices $70 a tonne higher than in the first half.

Stanbic Bank, a unit of South Africa's Standard Bank Group, Ghana said on Wednesday it had closed 3-year a $60 million senior revolving loan with Gold Fields' unit in the country.

Jinchuan Group Ltd., China's dominant nickel producer, may be the secret bidder for South African miner Metorex , the Business Day reported on Wednesday. Metorex, attractive due to its copper and cobalt operations in Africa, said earlier this month it had received an interest from another unnamed party after an earlier $1.1 billion bid from Brazil’s Vale .

Canada's Athabasca Oil Sands Corp said it increased its net resource volume by 10 percent and raised its capital expense to drill more wells.

“BHP (Billiton) , Rio Tinto and Xstrata were able to avoid most of this tax because they were all in the room […]

Goldman Sachs is to launch a commodities index with Clive Capital, the world’s largest commodity hedge fund, the Financial Times reported on […]

Four more financial institutions have joined Maple Group Acquisition Corp's plan to mount a hostile bid for the TMX Group (X.TO: Quote) and top a friendly offer from the London Stock Exchange Group (LSE.L: Quote), the consortium of Canadian banks and pension funds said on Sunday. Desjardins Financial Group, GMP Capital Inc (GMP.TO: Quote), Dundee Capital Markets (DCM.TO: Quote) and Manulife Financial (MFC.TO: Quote) have agreed to join Maple's C$3.6 billion (US$3.7 billion) bid for the operator of Canada's main bourse.

Afghanistan has significant deposits of copper, iron ore, niobium, cobalt, gold, molybdenum, silver and aluminum.