Nickel

A small Quebec company says it has uncovered one of the world's most significant deposits of neodymium reports the Montreal Gazette. GeoMegA Resources believes its Montviel property about 500 kilometres northwest of Quebec City, has a huge potential for quick development thanks to the size of the deposit and closeness to infrastructure. Two other companies are active in the region with Commerce Resources announcing significant discoveries on Thursday following its winter drill program at its Eldor rare earth project (pictured) at what it says is ranked as one of the largest REE deposits outside of China. On Friday Vancouver-based Canada Rare Earths announced it acquired a 69.55 km2 rare earth property 350 kilometers south of Montviel adding to its assets adjacent to that of GeoMegA.

Businessweek quotes a confidential report prepared for South Africa's mining CEOs as saying South Africa’s ruling party is closer to some form of nationalization than at any other time since the end of apartheid. A government takeover of mines could choke investments in a country with metal and mineral reserves estimated at 2.5 trillion and lead to a collapse of the currency, the rand. Firebrand Julius Malema (pictured), the leader of the youth wing of the ruling African National Congress which often acts as kingmaker in the country’s politics, is spearheading the campaign to seize mines, farms and banks. Malema is never far from headlines in the country with racially charged comments but now an anti-corruption police unit is probing a trust fund owned by him allegedly being used to funnel payments in exchange for securing government tenders.

The Korea Herald reports a Korean consortium forged an agreement with Bolivia’s state-run miner Comibol over the weekend to manufacture lithium-ion battery parts, boosting Korea’s bid to tap the largest lithium deposits in the world. A research project involving extracting lithium will begin next month at Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni – an 11,000 square kilometers salt flat (pictured) – with plans for constructing lithium-carbonate processing facilities. The soft, silver-white metal is widely used in rechargeable batteries for mobile phones, laptops and electric cars and the price has been steadily increasing prompting talk of a Opec-style cartel to control production and prices among South American nations that together control 85% of the world's resources.

Finnish mineral processing company Outotec more than doubled its profits for the first half of 2011.

Anglo American, one of the world's largest miners, today reported strong first half growth with operating profit ahead 40% to $6bn. Chief Executive Cynthia Carroll said that investments made during the downturn would stand them in good stead in the near-term future. "We believe that the fundamentals for the mining industry are very, very strong, and therefore the longer-term outlook is extremely positive." Image by shizhao

Due to rare earth's rising costs and unreliable supply, Japanese researchers built an electrical car that doesn't use any REEs. The proof-of-concept car was built by the Tokyo University of Science, and has an output of 50 kW with 95% plus efficiency. Eschewing rare earth materials did cost the car in some aspects. The car has poorer torque and energy efficiency than cars that use rare earth metals.

Great Western Minerals Group (“GWMG”) is pleased to announce that it has contracted DRA Mineral Projects (Pty) Ltd. (“DRA”) of South Africa, a company with a strong track record of utilizing world class standards, for the detailed design of the Steenkampskraal processing plant. DRA is a multi-disciplinary, multi-national organization that specializes in the mining, infrastructure and mineral processing industries. As one of the largest project management enterprises in Africa, the South African-founded group of companies has constructed plants on five continents.

Australia's Highlands Pacific and China Metallurgical Group can now power on their $1.5 billion Ramu nickel project in Papua New Guinea after a judge threw out the environmental challenge to the project's planned deep-sea disposal of tailings after an 18-month legal battle. Ramu is situated on Papua New Guinea's north-west coast and is completely built – annual production is estimated at more than 31,000 tonnes of nickel and 3,300 tonnes of cobalt for over 20 years.

CDE have announced the addition of Pilot Crushtec to their global distributor network with responsibility for South Africaand sub-SaharanAfrica. Pilot Crushtec will promote the full range of CDE washing equipment including the Evowash sand washing plant, Prograde screens, M2500 mobile washing plant, Rotomax logwashers and Aquacycle thickeners.