Copper

The prospectus giving details of the creation of a $90 billion mining and commodities trading behemoth will finally find its way to the inboxes of shareholders today.

Southern Copper Corp. is evaluating the construction of a hydroelectric plant in Peru to mitigate the impacts that the energy crisis in the second world producer of copper may have in its operations, said the company’s president Oscar Gonzalez.

An Argentinean government body that is mapping glaciers in the Central Andes has released initial results of its national glacier inventory, showing that many of the country’s mining projects sit in glacier-rich areas and may, therefore, be a threat to country’s future water supply, among other possible ill effects.

Troubled Vancouver miner, Baja Mining (TSE:BAJ), said that it laid off 40% of its staff to conserve cash and admitted that there is "no assurance" that it will find funding to complete its Boleo project, a $1.143 billion copper-cobalt-zinc project in Mexico.

If the board of the world's largest miner does not make a decision on the giant copper-gold-uranium-silver project in South Australia's outback by 8 December then it would lose all approvals and royalties concessions.

Chile’s Codelco new CEO, Thomas Keller, has traveled to London this week to hold talks with global miner Anglo American (LON:ALL), hoping to resolve a multi-billion dollar contract dispute between the parties.

Ruchir Sharma, head of emerging markets at Morgan Stanley, makes one of the most bearish statements yet on the end of the so-called commodity supercycle.

I'm not all that thrilled to be owning Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold (FCX) right now. While the company's stock has tended to be highly correlated to the price of copper, that correlation has slipped a bit. I'm guessing this has a lot to do with the violence and labor disputes at the company's Grasberg mine in Indonesia.

Peru's government declared a 30-day state of emergency on Monday night after two people were killed and dozens of police officers injured in violent anti-mining protests against Swiss based-Xstrata near Cuzco, in south eastern Peru.