Nickel

Brazilian mining giant Vale (NYSE:VALE) announced the country's Superior Court of Justice ruled in favour of the federal tax authority in its appeal against an injunction granted in March suspending payment of taxes on overseas profits by the company.

Toronto-based First Nickel (TSX:FNI) had a good quarter, raising its production at the Lockerby mine 87% from Q4 2011.

A lower copper price and a strike at its Kansanshi mine in Zambia has bit into the bottom line at Africa-focused base metals producer First Quantum Minerals.

The High Court of Malaysia today rejected Australian miner Lynas Corp’s (ASX:LYC) application for an injunction against pressure groups that oppose the company’s rare earth plant (LAMP), informs The Malaysian Insider.

There is no such thing as an average miner.  There is no such thing as an average salary.  Yet we can get some idea of how well mining people are paid by looking at the average salaries for 2011 on US metal mines recently published CostMine.

There are conventionally 2,080 work hours in a year. Thus somebody earning a wage of $20 an hour gets the equivalent of a salary of about $42,000. Considering the mine manager makes about $100,000 to $150,000 a year, it is interesting to take a look at actual wages paid to miners in the United States in 2011.

Japan and India have reached a basic agreement to jointly develop rare earths, used in the production of several high-tech goods from weapons to cell phones, and supply Tokyo with about 14% of its rare earth needs.

Canada's gross domestic product surprisingly dropped 0.2% in February, with all fingers pointing at the manufacturing and mining sectors, particularly potash and nickel producers, as the main responsible, says the latest Statistics Canada report.

Australian rare earths miner Lynas Corporation (ASX:LYC), has filed a defamation action against Malaysian protestors and opponents over their criticism of the company's rare earth plant (LAMP), which will process ores shipped from Western Australia.