Nickel

China announced this week that it was nearly doubling its rare earths export quota for the next six months compared to last […]

Norilsk Nickel, world number one nickel and palladium producer and Russia's biggest miner, announced on Friday it is restarting operations at its Maggie Hays mine near Lake Johnston in West Australia. Norilsk mothballed Maggie Hays bought from BHP and the other Australian operations it acquired in 2007 two years later as the financial crisis cut demand. Stainless steel production accounts for around two-thirds of nickel consumption.

After surging last week, industry bellwether Molycorp led a slide in rare earth mining stocks with a 5% drop by early afternoon on Thursday on news China is raising REE export quotas for the second half of the year in reaction to a WTO ruling. The exact impact of the decision is not yet clear: the new quotas only bring 2011 exports in line with last year prompting the EU to call it "highly disappointing." And fresh data from Lynas Corporation, world no. 2 outside China, show the price of a basket of eight REEs jumping 140% in just over two months.

The prospect of mining the ocean floor may seem far-fetched, but China, motivated by its insatiable hunger for resources, has opened its eyes to the idea. According to a story in The Japan Times, China will attempt to plunge the Jialong - the world's deepest-diving manned submersible - 5,000 metres below the surface of the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and North America, exceeding the craft's previous depth of 3,759 metres.

Australia's no. 2 nickel miner Minara Resources , which is resuming full production runs following repair work at its Murrin Murrin ore processing plant, trimmed its full-year production guidance on Wednesday. Minara, 71 percent-owned by commodities trader Glencore International , cut its guidance to 29,000-32,000 tonnes of nickel in 2011 from between 33,000 and 37,000 tonnes.

Reuters reports that nickel went untraded today, but still managed to fall as copper, aluminum and zinc also fell.

Shares in Anfield Nickel's jumped more than 4% to within striking distance of a year-high on Friday after the company released the results of its economic assessment of the Mayaniquel project in Guatemala. Anfield said the project may generate approximately 700 permanent jobs and 800 direct jobs during the three year construction period and potentially $1.8 billion in taxes and government royalties payable to the Guatemalan government.

Stocks in heavyweight rare earth miners soared on Thursday with Molycorp adding 2.5% after trading up over 4% earlier and Lynas Corp wiping out losses it suffered on delays at its Malaysian refinery, gaining 4% on huge volumes. REE stocks are usually volatile but investors digested a lot of news this week: first there was the discovery of massive marine rare earth deposits which was quickly followed by deep scepticism, then the WTO ruled China’s export restrictions violate trade rules and now some analysts believe of the 150 listed REE projects only five will ever enter production.

Pacific Wildcat Resources announced the initial NI 43-101 compliant independent Niobium mineral resource estimate report for the Mrima Hill Niobium and Rare Earth Project in Kenya. The Niobium mineral resource estimate is from surface down to a maximum depth of 30 metres with 83% of the mineral resource tonnes being found in the top 20 metres.