In a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange on Friday, Tata Chemicals said that its subsidiary Valley Holdings has bought a 32.9% stake in EPM Mining Ventures, which is the process of developing a potash prospect in Sevier Lake, Utah. According to the Financial Post talks between India and producers at the International Fertilizer Industry Association's annual conference in Montreal broke down on Friday. At some 7m tonnes/year India is the second largest importer of potash in the world and is asking for a 10% discount on the current price of $500/tonne.

The $7.1 billion merger of coal miners Massey Energy Co (MEE.N) and Alpha Natural Resources Inc (ANR.N) should be blocked or Massey's board will avoid responsibility for their reckless management, a shareholder attorney told a court on Thursday. Several pension funds that invested in Massey have sued to block the vote next week by shareholders of the two companies.

According to the report in the newspaper senior bureaucrats have told the federal government that the controversial pipeline that would stretch for 1,170km from Brudenheim in Alberta to a new marine terminal at Kitimat in northern British Columbia, offers export capacity that the industry does not need. Last week Stephen Wuori, Enbridge’s president for Liquids Pipelines, vigorously defended the project saying that given that currently 99% of Canada’s $50bn/year exports went to the US, the industry needs to diversify and supply the energy-hungry economies of the Pacific Rim.

BusinessDay reports on Friday the global platinum surplus may jump eightfold to as much as five tons after Japan’s worst earthquake slashed car production, reducing the country’s demand for the metal used in cars’ emission systems to the lowest level in 28 years. Earlier Mining Weekly reported that world number two platinum producer Impala Platinum has shelved plans to increase production at its underperforming 73%-owned Marula mine leading to lay-offs at the company’s largest development project in South Africa.

Yellowhead Mining Inc. ("Yellowhead") (TSX VENTURE:YMI) is pleased to report Hole HC11-87 returned 242.52 m of 0.39 Cu, 1.6 g/t Ag and 0.037 g/t Au, including 33.45 m of 0.65% Cu, 2.1 g/t Ag and 0.071 g/t Au and 17.62 m of 0.96% Cu, 4.5 g/t Ag and 0.069 g/t Au.

Zambia has approved the proposed takeover of Equinox Minerals by Barrick Gold on condition the government keeps its 2.2 percent stake in Equinox, a regulatory body said on Friday. The Zambia Competition and Consumer Protection Commission granted final conditional authorisation of the acquisition as the deal did not raise any competition concerns, it said in a statement.

A Conference Board of Canada report says high energy and metals prices "are prompting resource companies to invest billions in iron ore projects, nickel processing and offshore oil developments" in Newfoundland and Labrador, generating the largest growth in real GDP this year of all the Canadian provinces." The board's Provincial Outlook - Spring 2011 report issued Wednesday also forecasts that Saskatchewan "will benefit from tax breaks and a hot mining industry."

Executives of Massey Energy Co (MEE.N) believed President Barack Obama had a secret agenda to bring down the coal company after 29 men were killed in an accident at one of its mines last year, a lawsuit shows. The charge came in a class action suit by investors who seek to block Massey's pending $7 billion takeover by Alpha Natural Resources Inc (ANR.N) as they press their claims for about $1 billion in losses from alleged Massey mismanagement.

Australia's Fortescue Metals said on Thursday that due to weak credit market conditions it had dropped plans to proceed with a previously announced $1 billion unsecured term loan facility. The loan was launched in the United States on Monday by JP Morgan , according to Loan Pricing Corp, a Reuters news service. It was syndicated in the range of 375-400 basis point over London Interbank Offered Rates (Libor), it said.