Copper

BHP Billiton Ltd says it achieved production records in four commodities in 2010/11, with production of iron ore posting its 11th consecutive record. BHP said annual production of iron ore was 134.406 million tonnes (MT), up eight per cent on 2009/10.

Copper hit its highest since mid-April on Tuesday on better-than-expected U.S. housing data, a weaker dollar and hopes Chinese demand will remain firm, helping offset investor anxiety over U.S. and European sovereign debt concerns.

Outotec has been awarded another concentrator contract with Russian Copper Co. for the Miheevsky project with throughput of 18 million tonnes of ore a year. Finnish headquartered metallurgical specialist Outotec has signed a contract with ZAO Miheevsky Image from Outotec shows Kittilä gold mine, Finland.

Copper hit its highest since mid-April on Tuesday as a weaker dollar and hopes Chinese demand will remain firm helped offset investor anxiety over US and European sovereign debt concerns. Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange (LME) traded at $9,800.25 a tonne by 0825 GMT compared with Monday's close of $9,694 a tonne.

Copper and gold miner OZ Minerals will return up to $200 million to shareholders through an on-market buyback, as booming prices for its products continue to generate cash. Photo of copper concentrates being loaded, by OZ Minerals.

Commodities giant Glencore says it is buying a majority stake in Peru's Mina Justa copper mine for $475 million. Swiss-based Glencore International PLC said Monday the purchase of a 70 per cent stake in Marcobre SAC from CST Mining Group Limited is subject to inspection of the books and price adjustment.

Carpathian Gold announced that it has concluded an agreement with Barrick Gold Corporation for a CDN$20 Million private placement to purchase 38,461,538 common shares (the "Private Placement" and the "Common Shares") of the Corporation at a price of $0.52 per share. The Common Shares will be subject to a four-month hold period. The proceeds from the Private Placement will be exclusively applied to the Corporation's ongoing exploration and development work on its wholly owned Rovina Valley Project ("RVP") situated in west-central Romania.

An electronics recycling company in Badin, Washington was talking Saturday to applicants for jobs at a facility that could employ as many as 200 people. A building that once was part of Alcoa's aluminum smelting operation is being upgraded to house an outpost of Electronic Recyclers International, said company president John Shegerian. "We use manual labor to take the screens out of the machines, and then start segregating the material," Shegerian said. "Then the carcasses all go into the shredding machine." He said the materials are then sold to manufacturers, which use the plastic, aluminum and copper to make new products. The only thing left to dispose of is a little dust. It's a process Shegerian calls "urban mining."

Supplies in the U.S. copper scrap market remained tight at the start of the third quarter, as a lingering slump in industrial demolition rates made material, especially higher-grade material, harder to come by.