Rhodium

Zimbabwe's central bank threatened to freeze Impala Platinum's local account and ordered local banks to halt managing any of the company’s exports because it has “failed to comply with an order to bank locally,” state-controlled newspaper The Herald reports.

Less than a month after officially launching its asteroid-mining plans, Google’s billionaire co-founders and filmmaker James Cameron’s owned company Planetary Resources, has already decided not to accept any more job applications.

“Where the industry previously lacked investment opportunities and choice, it now has more projects than cash flows. All of us in the industry are having to make choices.”

"What is more disconcerting is that while investors have over the past few weeks appeared cautious of running too short on gold, this fear looks to have evaporated."

Anglo American Platinum (Amplats), the world’s largest platinum producer, launched today the first of five fuel cell-powered locomotive prototypes to be tested at its mining operations in South Africa.

Miningmx.com reports April has seen the lowest number of mining fatalities ever in South Africa, according to figures released by mines minister Susan Shabangu.

Meanwhile, palladium remained in a gross deficit last year, with this being likely to increase in 2012.

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.

Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives by mining companies operating in emerging markets in South America, Africa and Asia have become a crucial part of doing business as “above-ground risks are quickly gaining equal footing to traditional geological and engineering considerations for mining projects.”