Australian Mining reports Minara Resources aiming to boost female miner numbers

Cole Latimer of Australian Mining reports that Minara Resources, Australia's second-largest nickel producer, is looking to increase the number of women on its mines to address the skills shortage.

Minara says about 30% of its current workforce are women.

The miner’s human resources manager Peter Bourne told the ABC that a number of campaigns are kicking off to encourage more women into mining.

“There's a lot of good work going on, I know the chamber of minerals and energy in Perth have promoted it through their women in mining celebrations recently," Bourne said.

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Joanna Gaskell - Education Editor | March 30, 2011 | 12:47 pm

Sama and Old Nick

In 1751, Axel Fredrik Cronstedt of Sweden attempted to extract copper from the mineral Kupfernickel - today called niccolite. To his surprise instead of copper, he got a silvery white metal he started calling nickel. The name nickel comes from the German language and means Old Nick – which is a name Germans use for the devil – so nickel is “Old Nicks copper” or the “Devil’s copper

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Richard Mills - Ahead of the Herd | March 28, 2011 | 7:58 pm
Norilsk Nickel mill mining

Rusal suffers further rebuff as court rejects injunction request

Moscow - OJSC MMC Norilsk Nickel (the Company) announces today that RUSAL has once again failed gain an injunction through court. The Krasnoyarsk Territory arbitration court has rejected the request for an injunction in a lawsuit brought by RUSAL against OJSC MMC Norilsk Nickel. The suit challenged the divestment of the OGK-3 generating company for a stake in Inter RAO.

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Mineweb | March 22, 2011 | 1:38 pm
Copper closeup mining

First Quantum doubles quarterly profit

First Quantum Minerals posted a US$455 million profit in the third quarter, the Vancouver-based company reported on Tuesday. That compares with $227 million in earnings in the three months ended December 31, 2009. Sales of copper in Q3 were down from the same period last year, from 98,171 tonnes in Q3 2009 to 76,290 in the third quarter of 2010. However, the company ended the year with $1.385 billion in its treasury compared to $959 million in the previous year's Q3.

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Andrew Topf | March 15, 2011 | 11:00 pm

Altius makes big gain in Q3

Altius Minerals made a profit of $69.3 million, or $2.38 per share, in the three months ending January 31 — the Canadian iron ore producer's third quarter. That compares to a $102,000 loss in the same period last year. Quarterly revenues were 1.1 million versus $912,000 for the previous year's Q3. Altius also gained $84.6 million after transferring its 100% interest in the Kami iron ore property to Alderon Resources Corp. in exchange for 32.3 million shares of Alderon.

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Andrew Topf | March 14, 2011 | 10:29 pm

Russia’s young flock to Arctic mining town

Lung-blackening pollution and Arctic isolation have not stopped Russian mining giant Norilsk Nickel from attracting graduates to work in its mines. Andrey Ostroukh, writing for Reuters, describes how nickel and palladium mining have transformed this former Gulag town into a thriving city of 210,000.

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Andrew Topf | March 6, 2011 | 7:26 pm