Canada’s Dumas Contracting and JCHX Mining Management Co (JCHX), a leading Chinese mining contractor, have entered into a strategic alliance. The scope of the strategic alliance covers supporting Chinese clients with projects in Dumas’ core markets of Canada and Latin America. In addition, Dumas will provide its technical expertise in supporting JCHX on shaft-sinking projects in China.

Market Oracle reported on recent gains in shares of Molycorp (NYSE:MCP). The market news is quoted as saying: The price drivers today are plentiful: Financial Times reports that rare earth materials are being stockpiled in China, Piper Jaffray upgraded Molycorp to a buy, and a host of analysts piled on with positive assessments of the rare earth industry in general.

Passport Potash, Inc. (TSX VENTURE:PPI)(OTCQX:PPRTF) is pleased to report preliminary results from two core holes that have intersected significant potash deposits at relatively shallow depths in the Holbrook evaporite basin. According to chemical assay results obtained from Skyline Laboratories in Tucson, Arizona, PPI2011-04 ("Core 1") intersected 9.5 feet (1463.0-1472.5 feet) of 12.29% KCL which includes a 4.0 foot (1465.5-1469.5 feet) interval containing 18.28% KCL. PPI2011-6 ("Core 2") intersected 7.5 feet (1437.5-1445.0 feet) of 11.93% KCL within which includes a 2.5 foot (1439.0-1441.5 feet) interval containing 24.34% KCL.

Ausdrill Limited has been awarded several contracts which further broaden the services offered by the group. These include a coal seam gas (CSG) contract, new drill and blast contracts and an explosives supply contract. With the continued interest and commitment in CSG in Australia by a number of notable companies operating in this market, EDA envisages an opportunity for long-term sustainable growth in the CSG drilling sector.

The Montreal Gazette reports: About two dozen non-unionized workers have walked off the job in a remote mining camp in northern Ontario — in an area known as the Ring of Fire — in protest of what they call unsafe conditions and unsatisfactory compensation. The workers put out a statement late Sunday saying they had stopped working over the weekend.

Claude Mongeau, president and chief executive officer of Canadian National Railway Company, said today the company will have invested almost $400-million to buy and rehabilitate four short-line railways serving resource-rich regions of Northern Alberta by year-end 2011.

Teck Resources provided an update today to its coal guidance for the second quarter. As a result of the February earthquake and tsunami in Japan, some of Teck's coal customers have deferred shipments due to reduced steel production requirements and Teck now expects coal sales in the second quarter at the low end of its previously announced guidance range of 5.5 to 6.0 million tonnes.

U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar is expected to announce this morning at 10 a.m. PDT the Obama Administration's decision regarding the extension of a 1-million acre mining ban around the Grand Canyon for 20 years. In 2009 Salazar ordered a two-year time-out from all new mining claims in the Arizona Strip near the Grand Canyon.

Extorre Gold Mines announced that it has entered into an agreement pursuant to which a syndicate of underwriters led by TD Securities Inc. (the "Underwriters") has offered to purchase, on a bought deal private placement basis, 2,400,000 common shares (the "Shares") of the Company at a price of $10.50 per Share (the "Issue Price") for total gross proceeds of $25,200,000 (the "Offering"). The net proceeds from the Offering will be used for exploration and development of the Company's mineral projects in Argentina and for general working capital purposes.