Antofagasta CEO says copper drop an overreaction, shares duly jump 7%

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.

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Forget pricing, politics and pipelines – there’s a much bigger threat to the oil sands

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."

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Largest futures exchange will now accept $500 million in bullion as real money

CME Group, which operates the largest  US futures exchanges, will from today increase to $500 million the amount of physical gold its US clearing members can post as collateral for margin requirements, more than double the existing $200 million. The Chicago-based firm which first accepted bullion two years ago is the latest of a number of  exchanges including IntercontinentalExchange and other financial services companies like JP Morgan that accept the use of gold as collateral, which essentially places the precious metal in the top tier of asset classes alongside government bonds and currencies. The World Gold Council is also lobbying to have the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision  do the same, which could have widespread repercussions for bullion.

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Mining companies raided in Philippines

Three mining companies in the Philippines have been raided by over 200 heavily-armed communist rebels, Forbes.com is reporting. The rebels burned heavy equipment, disarmed guards and briefly held people, according to officials.

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Resolution Copper Encourages Arizona Students to Train in Mining-Related Disciplines

Cronkite News reports: Resolution Copper is sponsoring high school students in Superior, Apache Junction, Globe, Hayden and other area communities in Arizona to major in the sciences, engineering, math, or business. Resolution intends to bring a mine into production in the area in 2021, and will need people trained in high-tech skills. Subject to Congress approving an exchange of U.S. Forest Service land east of Superior, the company is planning to mine what it calls the largest untapped copper lode in the U.S. With the copper more than a mile beneath the surface, Resolution Copper plans to tunnel into the earth to remove the ore rather than creating an open pit. “It’s a technical and economic marvel,” [Resolution Copper’s communications manager Bruce] Richardson said. “We’re going to need really smart and qualified workers to operate it safely.”

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Queensland Manufacturing Workers are Offered Apprentices to Join Resources Sector

Manufacturers' Monthly: The National Apprenticeships Program (NAP) offered by Queensland’s SkillsTech Australia and several national training organizations are offering apprenticeship programs to people over 25 years old to enter the underskilled resources sector.

According to NAP program director Alan Sparks, the system was launched in response to the National Resources Sector Employment Taskforce Report which identified the skills shortages in the mining and resources sector. “This Advanced Entry Adult Apprenticeship Scheme recruits Australians who have extensive skills and experience, rigorously assessing the skills they have already acquired and fills the gaps to secure full trade qualifications, potentially graduating participants within 18 months,” Sparks told Manufacturers’ Monthly.

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Keystone Industries could hire more workers if the permitting would hurry up: Scholl

Tom Scholl, CEO of Keystone Industries, told CNBC that he could put more people to work but the U.S. federal government is standing in the way. Scholl said the states are working "pretty close" with the mining companies. It is the federal government that is holding up mining and not working fast enough on permitting. Scholl singled out the US Army Corp of Engineers as creating the slowdown. "We are the Saudi Arabia of coal in the United Stats. It is a great export commodity. And any time you export it it is going to create a lot of jobs."

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What happened at Bougainville

SBS World News Australia reports that Bouganville copper mine, one of the world's largest deposits of copper, could open if past combatants could be fairly compensated. The report also alleges new complicity in the conflict that cost the lives of around 15,000 to 20,000 people. The open pit mine was established in Papua New Guinea in the early 1970s by Bougainville Copper Limited, a subsidiary of Rio Tinto. While operating, it accounted for 20% of the country's national budget.

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