Shares in London-listed Antofagasta, the copper giant controlled by Chile’s Luksic family, jumped 7% in afternoon trade on the FTSE, one of the best performers on a good day for miners. CEO Marcelo Awad earlier told Dow Jones Newswires the slump in copper prices in the last few weeks is a market overreaction and it hadn't seen any of its customers cancel or delay shipments. Copper has slumped over 30% since peaking at an all-time high of $10,190/tonne in February and Awad added that European customers of Antofagasta – after Thursday's move upward worth £10 billion again – are nevertheless reluctant to commit to 2012 orders thanks to all the uncertainty in the eurozone. The Luksics could do with a bit of a boost: analysts say Chile's richest family may have lost their way after buying control of Latin America’s largest container shipping company last month.

Reuters reports Zambia has lifted a ban on metal exports just two days after imposing it to sort out revenue collection and increase transparency in Africa's top copper producer, a minerals ministry official said on Thursday. It's good news for the Zambian mining sector – a lengthy suspension could have further pressured mines already dealing with volatile metal prices in recent weeks. Newly elected President Michael Sata has been concerned – analysts say with good reason – about copper exporters misreporting the amount of ore leaving Zambia, and earlier this week suspended export permits, to put new guidelines in place. Cobalt, gold and nickel also fell under the ban and now all export payments need to be routed via the central bank.

Cameco (TSX:CCO) (NYSE:CCJ) announced today it has signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding (MOU) with its joint venture partners to mill all Cigar Lake ore at the McClean Lake mill. The new milling arrangement is expected to result in a significant reduction in the operating cost of the Cigar Lake project, which is 50% owned and operated by Cameco. The other Cigar Lake joint venture partners are AREVA Resources Canada Inc. (37%), Idemitsu Resources Canada Inc. (8%) and Tepco Resources Inc (5%).

Westminster Resources ("Westminster" or "the Company") has now compiled results for the recent 2,000 metre drilling program at the Company's Sonora, Mexico properties.

Even if both Keystone XL and Enbridge's Northern Gateway pipelines are built, bitumen is expensive to extract and cannot compete with the many new shale oil plays – particularly in the Bakken oil basin where studies put the recoverable oil at 24 billion barrels – which have pushed US production to its highest level in a decade. No wonder Enbridge – busy building out its capacity in Bakken while Northern Gateway wallows in the approval process – said "it's the wild west out there at the moment."

Global diversified miner Anglo American announced Wednesday it has cquired the remaining 25%, along with rights to royalties it didn't already own, in BC-based Peace River Coal Partnership (PRC), for a combined $166 million.

The Keystone XL pipeline project of TransCanada Corp. should be halted because the US did not complete an environmental impact review before work started, green advocacy groups said in a lawsuit filed on Wednesday. The Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth and Western Nebraska Resources Council alleges the public process was a "sham" and that TransCanada has already started construction in the lawsuit filed in Omaha, Nebraska federal court. Governors of five of the six states the pipeline crosses have backed the project, except for the Nebraska. TransCanada has strongly denied the claims – all it did in Nebraska was "mow some grass."

The strike at Peru's Cerro Verde mine is getting nasty, reports MarkeWatch, with workers aiming to "paralyze the mine." MarketWatch reported Wednesday there are no negotiations underway to end the walkout, which began Sept. 29th over demands for higher wages and safety issues.

Guyana Goldfields (TSE:GUY) got a nice bump today after the company announced an agreeement with the Guyana government for developing its Aurora gold project. The stock was up around 8.5% on nearly-double average volumes on the Toronto exchange.