Copper

China plans to dramatically consolidate the number of mines in its country, according to Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT) and a study by MCCM. And China also wants its mines to be a lot more productive. Caterpillar released the results of a study in August. In 2004 China had 25,000 operating mines. By the end of 2013 China wants to get that number down to 4,000 mines. A minimum production of 300,000 tonnes per annum will be required for mine approval.

Mining investments could reach $2.8 billion in the Philippines this year if Chinese investors proceed with plans to jointly develop mining projects in the country, a senior mining official said Tuesday. There is a good chance that an initial target of $1.4 billion could be doubled if Chinese investors follow through in the last quarter on investments they have expressed interest in, Mines and Geosciences Bureau director Leo Jasareno said.

London copper prices rose 1.3% to $8,869.50 a tonne n Tuesday on reports that China could bolster Italy's flagging economy by buying its bonds. In the previous session, copper – considered a good indicator of economic activity – was dragged to a one-month low after Chile’s Codelco, the world’s largest producer, said some of its clients in the United States and Europe have asked to cancel orders. Italy has asked China to make "significant" purchases of Italian debt, the Financial Times reported on its website on Monday, saying that the chairman of China Investment Corp, headed up a delegation to Rome last week. Meanwhile Greek workers threatened to sabotage a new property tax, a last-ditch effort by the government to please international lenders and the US treasury secretary flies to Poland to meet with EU finance ministers on the Greek crisis.

Newmont Mining Corp.'s Indonesian unit said on Monday it is in talks with a worker union and local government to solve a protest that blocked access to its copper and gold mine last week.

Bard Ventures (CVE:CBS) was up 7.69% on Friday, bucking a down day in the markets when the S&P/TSX Composite index was down 2.34%, after the company announced drill results of 70.49 gm/t silver over 214.7m at Lone Pine Property. Bard Ventures said that the positive results received from drill hole BD-11-69 demonstrate the continuity of high grade molybdenum (Mo), copper (Cu) and silver (Ag) mineralization over a horizontal distance of 131 meters from drill hole BDQ-08-03 through BD-11-69 to BDQ-08-04.

Lumina Copper (CVE:LCC) announced on Thursday intersects of 646 meters grading of .93% copper equivalent at the Taca Taca copper-gold-molybedenum project in Argentina. Lumina also reported drilling results of 2.69% copper equivalent in 50 meters of grading. Lumina was up 23 cents to 7.08 on Thursday. At the end of the week, was back down $6.71.

Alaska's Pebble deposit presents big problems for Northern Dynasty, the junior Canadian miner that wants to cash out of its sole asset. Pebble has an eye-popping recoverable resource of 67 million ounces of gold and 55 billion pounds copper with some molybdenum thrown in for good measure which at today's prices is worth over $300 billion in total. The Vancouver company shares the venture with Anglo-American but the $4.7 billion development costs could be too rich even for the London-listed giant's blood. Apart from the problem of finding a heavyweight buyer for its 50%, Dynasty also faces opposition from a $150 million a year salmon fishery near the site and local environmental protesters who have enlisted the support of Hollywood celebrities like Robert Redford.

Market research house BMI has over the past quarter made an upwards revision to its forecast for Zambian copper output for this year, increasing it to 913 000 t, up from 877,000 t.

Extending the Neves-Coro mine in Portugal will add $100 million to the net present value (NPV) and push the life of the mine into 2026, Lundin Mining (TSX:LUN) said today. The company released the feasibility results for Lombador Phase 1, which plans to exploit the uppper portions of the Lombador zinc/copper ore bodies.