A landslide Saturday near Freeport McMorran's Grasberg mine left thousands of workers stranded, but was not expected to impact operations at the world's largest copper mine, a company spokesperson told Reuters: A weekend landslide buried a key road access tunnel to Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc's Grasberg mine in Papua, Indonesia, leaving thousands of workers stranded, but a company spokesman said operations were continuing as normal. Freeport is the world's largest publicly traded copper miner, while Grasberg has the world's largest recoverable reserves of copper and the largest gold reserves.

Responding to rising metals prices and more stable markets, most mining companies increased exploration budgets in 2010. The result was a 45% increase in estimated worldwide nonferrous metals exploration spending over 2009. Regionally, Latin America (led by Mexico, Peru, Chile, Brazil, and Argentina) was the top exploration destination in 2010-a position it has held for the better part of two decades-while Canada was the top country overall. Gold was the leading target, attracting more than half the global exploration budget total, with copper a distant second.

After a Nevada miner died last week after falling down an abandoned mine shaft, questions are being asked as to when the […]

The last coal-fired power plant in the Pacific Northwest will shut down completely by 2025 under an agreement announced Saturday by Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire, says a report by the Los Angeles Times. The first boiler of TransAlta's 1,460-megawatt plant in Centralia, Wash., is set to go offline in 2020 and the second in 2025. “This agreement is sending a message that states are getting serious about combating global-warming pollution and are taking steps to open up markets for home-grown clean energy,” said Bruce Nilles, deputy conservation director with the Sierra Club, whose Beyond Coal Campaign has been involved in the negotiations. Nilles hinted at the breakthrough during a keynote speech at the Public Interest Environmental Law Conference in Eugene, Ore., but commented only after the announcement.

The increase in the demand for potash, along with higher prices, is fuelling an expansion of PotashCorp's Allan mine in Sasatchewan, The Star Phoenix reports. The $550 million expansion began in 2009 and is expected to push production at the site from two million to three million tonnes per year by 2012: “Over the last two decades the potash industry has been fairly stable, it had plateaued,” said Larry Long, general manager of the Allan mine. “Now with all the influx of orders for potash, the market has expanded quite a bit, countries all over the world are using our product at a higher rate, so we are in a position where we have to expand to meet the demand.

Jiangxi Copper, China’s top copper producer, sees copper prices rising this year as supply remains tight and demand continues to increase.

Finnish headquartered metallurgical technology specialist Outotec has been awarded a contract to supply the copper effluent treatment at Codelco’s new MinaMinistro Hales […]

China's top copper producer Jiangxi Copper (0358.HK) (600362.SS) expects domestic copper prices to rise this year, mainly due to a supply squeeze, its chairman said on Saturday.

One of the three rescue capsules built to rescue 33 Chilean miners trapped underground last year will be on public display at the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada’s International Convention, Trade Show and Investors Exchange, to be held at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre (south building) from Sunday, March 6 to Wednesday, March 9.