The Australian reports Fortescue Metals' Chinese shareholder Hunan Valin Steel plans to triple its capacity through mergers and capital investment and is eyeing a listing on the Hong Kong stockmarket to raise up to $1.68bn. The Chinese government last month began another push to consolidate the country's fractured steel industry and is planning to create six or seven mega-groups with the aim of boosting its negotiating power with iron ore giants including miners Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton. Hunan Valin is considered second-tier at the moment but wants to push production to over 30m tonnes/year, similar to industry behemoth Baosteel.

Baotou Steel Rare Earth (Group) Hi Tech Co, the world's largest rare earth producer, will consolidate 35 local miners this month and further unify the distribution and processing of the 17 elements. The Inner Mongolia autonomous region, the site of 97% of China's reserves, has drafted a plan to concentrate all resources under Baotou. The move follows the announcement last week that the state-owned firm will set up the country's first rare earth products exchange to further regulate the market. China accounts for upwards of 95% of global supply. To combat China's domination of the market the US recently declared rare earth to be a strategic resource for the country.

The Australian reports Tim Netscher the new chief executive of Gindalbie Metals took over after the miner in March announced a second cost blowout at its West Australian Karara joint venture. At the time, Netscher, 60, was working for Newmont Mining and thinking about swapping executive roles for non-executive positions, but the Gindalbie offer was too good to refuse. The multilingual Netscher, who speaks Afrikaans, Indonesian, German, Spanish and English, knows that Gindalbie's Karara magnetite project is at a crucial stage of development, but the mining industry veteran is not shy about a challenge.

Indonesian coal giant Adaro Energy expects 2011 coal production up 5 million tons from last year to 46-48 million tons and then to nearly 50 million in 2012, while Bayan Resources is aiming to more than double its output to 25 million tonnes by 2013. Indonesia is expected to make up 39% of the global increase in coal exports, with Adaro and top miner Bumi Resources becoming two of the top three exporters by 2015. Australia will follow closely behind in terms of growth. India will surpass Japan as the leading buyer of Indonesian coal this year, the country’s coal association told Reuters, and India’s demand will continue to surge as electricity demand is expected to rise 56% by 2017.

Indian traders on Saturday sent gold prices higher amid the Indian wedding season and firming overseas trends and silver snapped its three-day losing streak. On global markets on Friday Gold for August delivery added $9.70 to $1,542.40 an ounce after US economic data showed job growth slowed to a crawl in May. The weak dollar and the spectre of a return to recession in the US on top of a European debt crisis have buoyed the gold price this year and long term fundamentals – buying in India and China – remain strong. India remained the top purchaser of gold buying 291 tonnes in the first quarter while China added 93 tonnes of bars and coins from January to March, more than double the 2010 level and jewellery demand increased 21% from a year earlier to a record 143 tonnes.

Vancouver-based African Queen Mines announced on Friday that it has now commenced its 2011 core drilling program covering approximately 3000m at its King Solomon Project, located north of Lake Cahorra Basa in western Tete Province, Mozambique. The project is the subject of the earn-in and joint venture with Switzerland's Opti Metal Trading, covering exploration, development and exploitation. African Queen has so far earned an interest of 51% in the project and may earn up to 85% by funding additional prescribed stages through feasibility. The company is exploring properties in Mozambique, Kenya and Ghana for gold and other metals and it is undertaking exploration in Botswana and Namibia for diamonds, gold and other metals – the licenses in Botswana comprise approximately 2890 sq km of diamond prospects.

The Toronto Sun reports employees from Shell Canada's Muskeg River and Jackpine mines near Fort MacKay were evacuated late Thursday night as wildfires continue to rage in that part of Alberta, Canada. Despite cooler weather and scattered showers on Friday 290 forest firefighters from Alberta, B.C. and the Northwest Territories are still fighting out of control blazes in the Richardson area 60 km north of Fort McMurray where 354,000 hectares have burned. Imperial Oil and Shell Canada say they're working with the government and other oil sands operators to monitor the fire and smoke conditions in the area and Syncrude Canada says all of its staff at its operations in that part of the province are still continuing to work.

Two reports this week suggest that fears of a prolonged period of global economic austerity following the financial crisis have been overblown. In Hong Kong Christie's experienced its best ever auction with buyers spending $469m on wines, antiques, art and particularly jewellery. At $9,342,219, the pictured pair of Golconda diamond ear pendants – dubbed the Imperial Cushions – set an all time record price per carat. At the other end of the scale prices have also been rising at a rapid rate. Demand for one carat and smaller stones from India and China pushed the International Diamond Exchange's polished diamond index to a new record in May surpassing the previous record level achieved in the pre-recession summer of 2008 and up 12.5% so far this year.

Mining Weekly Online quotes Karnalyte Resources CEO Robin Phinney as saying that its Wynyard project in Saskatchewan has enough resources to eventually produce 6m tons of potash a year and that the company is considering bringing in joint venture partners to do so. Karnalyte initially expects to ramp up production by 500,000 tons per year to reach 2m tons by 2016/2017 at a cost of $1.5bn. The company on Friday was trading at $11, up 42% since it debut on the TSX mid-December last year.