Zambian President Rupiah Banda opened the country's largest coal mine Friday, after Singapore's Nava Bharat took over majority shares and invested $750 million (525 million euros) at the once defunct state entity. Nava Bharat, a Singapore subsidiary of India's Nava Bharat Ventures, has a 65 percent stake in Maamba Collieries, with Zambia's government owning 25 percent through its Zambia Copper Mines Investment Holdings.

Debt-saddled Greece has a new revenue source in the form of two gold mines that have been approved by the country's environment minister, George Papaconstantinou, FT reported on Friday. The newspaper said that European Goldfields has received final approval to build two large gold mines in northern Greece, named Olympias and Skouries, near Thessaloniki. The AIM-listed miner plans to spend $500 million to build the mines and a total of 1.3 billion euros throughout the life of the mines.

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.

The price oil sands producers can charge fell to $96/barrel on Friday while global crude prices remained firmly around the $118/barrel level as Canadian supplies swamp the US. Canada exports two million barrels of crude to the US per day of which 1.5m come from oil sands meaning Alberta's bitumen mines are losing out on a possible $33m in revenues each and every day. Building new pipelines would remove the glut but it’s almost three years since TransCanada first applied to extend its Keystone pipeline and Enbridge’s project to pipe crude to the west coast for export to Asia will languish for another 18 months in a review process. All this while US need for crude continues to seep away and Chinese demand grows at double digit rates.

While Western mining multinationals are conspicuous in their absence from any bids for Afghanistan's vast resources of copper and iron ore Tata Steel on Thursday joined other Indian steelmakers to bid for the Hajigak iron ore deposits 130km west of Kabul. So far only China has made any firm commitment to the country's mining sector with state-owned Metallurgical Corp's successful $3.4bn bid to build a copper mine – and a $6bn railway to go with it – that should enter production in 2014.

South Africa’s Pilanesberg Platinum announced on Friday a labour dispute has been settled and mining operations will resume next week after a two-week shutdown after employees of a contractor disrupted operations through intimidation of supervisors and damage to property and equipment. The share traded up almost 2% in afternoon trade but the company worth some $510m has lost more than a tenth of its value on the Toronto bourse since halting operations and is down close to 50% over the last twelve months.

SFGate reports China's asset managers, who have been approved to raise $70 billion for allocation overseas, are seeking additional funds to invest in gold and precious metals as soaring inflation spurs interest in alternative assets as a way to protect wealth. Five companies have been approved this year to raise cash for investment in precious metals products overseas via the qualified domestic institutional investors program, said Hu Miao, an analyst at Shanghai-based fund research firm Z-ben Advisors Ltd. Twenty more applications for resources and commodity investment are pending, said Hu.

In a graduation ceremony on June 23, eight First Nations people graduated from a new program sponsored by Dumas Mining, Wabun Tribal Council, the Matachewan Aboriginal Access to mining jobs Training Strategy (MAATS) and Goldcorp Inc. All are guaranteed employment, reports Wawatay News Online.

“On behalf of the graduates, we want to thank Wabun and our respective communities for the support and encouragement you have provided over the course of this training. We were also privileged to have the opportunity to work at Goldcorp for our training and we are thankful for the valuable instruction we received from Dumas Mining,” said graduate Paul Minarik, of Mattagami. The graduates completed training in their respective fields to prepare them for a career in the mining industry. Six of the graduates completed training in basic underground mine training.

Over the past five years, simulation training for coal miners at the Kentucky Coal Academy has been using simulators from Fifth Dimension Technologies based out of Pretoria - COO Mario Schehle credits rapid technological development, reports Engineering News.

What the 100% locally owned company does is to create simulators that train operators to handle some really big machines, such as dump trucks, graders, continuous miners, drilling rigs and drag lines, and this in an environment that very much simulates the real thing, including dust, fog, rain and slippery roads, with red flags popping up quickly when the operator slips up not only in handling the machine but also in site-specific procedures. ...Schehle says the key in growing the company has been the rapid development of computer technology, which now allows for standard equipment to be used to create a simulator, and no longer the expensive workstations required before.