Copper

Bloomberg reports BHP workers in Chile voted Sunday to extend their strike at the world’s largest copper mine. Stoppages at BHP’s Australian coal operations may resume this week. Thirty thousand South African coal mine workers including Anglo American and Xstrata employees walked off the job Sunday and may be joined by 160,000 gold industry workers. Strikes that started over the weekend are impacting output from mines of diamond giant De Beers. Workers are seeking a larger slice as global producers report record earnings: Melbourne-based BHP, the world’s biggest mining company, is expected to report full-year profits of $22.5 billion next month, almost double 2010’s net income. Xstrata may report record 2011 profit of $7.3 billion and Anglo American $7.4 billion, estimates show.

A freeze on licenses to explore for minerals is no small matter in Mongolia, a country undergoing a huge resources boom, as miners such as Anglo-Australian giant Rio Tinto (RIO) and the Chinese-backed Shenhua Group compete for the right to extract coal, copper, gold, molybdenum, and uranium. It is a resource play that is expected to bring a flood of money into the impoverished country over the next decade, centered around huge mining projects such as the Shivee Ovoo and Tavan Tolgoi coal reserves, estimated to be worth $300 billion and $400 billion, respectively, and the copper and gold mine Oyu Tolgoi, worth some $300 billion. (Image is of the Nadaam Festival, traditional Mongolian wrestling in Central Mongolia. Photograph by Oksana Perkins taken on July 10, 2009 / Shutterstock.com.)

Workers at the world's biggest copper mine in northern Chile downed their tools over the weekend as part of an indefinite strike over unmet contract demands. About 2,300 workers of the Escondida mine, under majority control of British-Australian giant

The largest union at Chile's Escondida copper mine has voted to "indefinitely" extend a strike at the mine, which is controlled by BHP Billiton. Members of the 2350-strong Escondida Mine Workers Union No 1 "unanimously voted" to extend the work stoppage, which began on Thursday night and was initially planned to end 24 hours later at 8pm on Friday, union leader Jose Vidal said.

The largest union at Chile's Escondida copper mine voted to "indefinitely" extend a strike at the mine, which is controlled by global diversified miner BHP Billiton Ltd. (BHP, BHP.AU), union leader Jose Vidal said Friday. Members of 2,350-strong Escondida Mine Workers Union No. 1 "unanimously voted" to extend the work stoppage, which began Thursday night and was initially slated to end 24 hours later at 8 p.m. EDT on Friday, Vidal told Dow Jones Newswires.

David Knox, Santos chief executive, says the expected skills shortage has not yet affected his company. Picture: Calum Robertson Source: News Limited SANTOS chief executive David Knox, whose company is building one of the three $15 billion-plus coal-seam

Neves Corvo, Ludin Mining's copper-zinc mine located in Portugal, will produce 4,000 tonnes less copper and 19,000 tonnes less of zinc in 2011. The cash cost of production at the mine will also climb from $1.40 to $1.65. Neves Corvo, which accounts for most of Lundin's copper output, was expected to produce 76,000 tonnes of copper and 25,000 tonnes of zinc. The outlook has now fallen to 72,000 tonnes of copper and 6,000 tonnes of zinc. However, zinc production at the company's Irish mine, Galmoy, was expected to rise from 17,000 tonnes to 28,000 tonnes.

Nautilus Minerals' (TSX:NUS)(AIM:NUS) Tongan subsidiary, Tonga Offshore Mining Ltd. ("TOML"), has become one of the first private sector organizations to be granted exploration licences in the highly prospective Clarion Clipperton Zone ("CCZ") of the Eastern Pacific. As a result of exploration conducted in the 1980s, the CCZ is known to host significant deposits of polymetallic nodules, which are golf ball sized nuggets, rich in copper, nickel, manganese and cobalt, lying on the seafloor in water depths starting at 4500 metres.

Chilean President Sebastian Pinera said Thursday the country's copper giant Codelco will remain state-owned in a bid to ease fears that the company will be privatized. Codelco, the world's largest copper-producing company, "belongs to all Chileans," and any attempt to privatize it was to be ruled out, Pinera said.