The Puna plateau sits at an elevation of 4,000m, stretches for 1800 km along the Central Andes and attains a width of 350–400 km. The Puna covers a portion of Argentina, Chile and Bolivia and hosts an estimated 70 - 80% of global lithium brine reserves.
DeLorme, the innovation leader in navigation technology, today announced the Fall 2011 release of the DeLorme® inReach™, the first Iridium-based personal communicator to deliver truly global two-way satellite text messaging; delivery confirmations; SOS capabilities; remote tracking, and an Android smartphone interface.
Huguette Clark spent the last 20 years of her life living in almost total isolation. She had cut off all contact with her family, preferring instead the company of her collection of dolls. In addition to being a recluse, Clark was also a very wealthy woman. The heiress to a Montana copper mining concern, she owned a 42-room apartment on New York's Fifth Avenue, an oceanfront estate in Santa Barbara, California and a country manor in Connecticut.
Stock market bulls bellowed yesterday as bourses around the globe rocketed higher. Several major European markets were up more than 2%, and the S&P vaulted 1.3% higher on the day. Unusually, bonds did notsell off with comparable ferocity, nor did commodities shoot drastically higher – indeed, gasoline fell more than 1% on the day.
Canadian Business reports merger and acquisition activity is expected to increase in Canada's oilpatch this year, as energy executives take a brighter view of their sector's prospects, according to a study released Wednesday. But the positive outlook is dampened somewhat by cost escalation for labour and equipment, the Ernst & Young report said. In 2010 Canadian energy M&A activity was dominated by oil sands. While the $4.65bn Sinopec-Syncrude deal was the largest the total the number of oil sands transactions tripled.
"Cost inflation has been experienced at all operations," continued Mr. Stothart. "The industry is experiencing higher costs for fuel, consumables and labour in all regions this year, as well as higher royalties commensurate with the higher gold prices. Even with these higher costs, and a conservative gold price assumption of $1,200 per ounce, we believe that the projected cash flow from our operations combined with our current cash position will fund our significant three-year $1.2 billion investment to expand production at our existing gold mines and further strengthen our balance sheet."
On Tuesday Zambia's Finance Minister mocked Zimbabwe and South Africa for planning to forcibly raise government stakes in foreign mines, saying "the Zambian miner in 1970s was a happier miner than a miner during the period of state ownership of the mines.” Under Zimbabwe's on-again off-again indigenization policy mining companies were granted until the beginning of June to submit proposals about transferring majority ownership to locals while there are growing calls within the ruling party in South Africa to move ahead with nationalization as called for in the country's Freedom Charter.
Waterford, WI (June 21, 2011) – VISTA Training Inc. has launched two new training modules as part of its growing, cost effective Silver Series: Heavy Equipment – Intro & Safety and Heavy Equipment – Pre-Use Inspection. These web-based training modules are designed to help educate trainees who are new to the fields of construction and mining, and are prerequisites for the rest of the modules in the Silver Series.
Gemcom Software International Inc., the largest global supplier of mining software solutions, today announced it will open an office in Almaty, Kazakhstan on June 24, 2011. Gemcom’s software solutions, including Surpac, GEMS, Minex, MineSched and Whittle are already widely used by exploration and mining operations throughout Kazakhstan and Central Asia.
London-listed Gem Diamonds said in a statement on Monday that it will drill four boreholes in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in partnership with VOX United, a non-governmental organisation to provide the bushmen or Basarwa living in the reserve with water. The community is locked in a bitter battle with the Botswana government which accuses them of depleting the park's natural resources, while the Basarwa say that the government is violating their rights by trying to relocate them and that their impact on the environment is negligible.