How to mine 1,600 meters underwater

Nautilus Minerals (TSE:NUS), a Toronto-based miner seeking to extract minerals from the ocean floor, uploaded some multimedia showing how it will mine the sea floor. The company is exploring for copper, gold, silver and zinc in seafloor massive sulphide (SMS) deposits, equivalent to land-based volcanogenic massive sulphide deposits such as Kidd Creek in Canada. The company's main focus is Solwara 1 Project, located off Papua New Guinea in the western Pacific Ocean. The mineralised zone is about 1.3 km long and up to 200 m wide. It has been drilled up to depths of 19 m below the seafloor. Water depth is approximately 1600m.

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Michael Allan McCrae | October 1, 2011 | 3:08 pm

Severstal planning higher production; bullish on coal, iron ore

Russian mining group Severstal plans to boost production of coking coal and expects iron ore mines in Liberia and Brazil to come online by 2017, the company said Thursday in a presentation to investors in London. CEO Vadim Larin predicted the price of both materials used in steelmaking will remain high and forecasts limited supply growth as current market turmoil delays new projects, Platts reported:

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Andrew Topf | September 29, 2011 | 7:08 pm

Climate change will be expensive for Canada: NRT

The effects of climate change will cost Canada about $5 billion per year by 2020 and increase to somewhere between $21 and $43 billion per year in 2035, according to the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy. The NRT released its study this week, Paying the Price: the Economic Impacts of Climate Change for Canada. The study finds that costs will be borne by the timber industry and the coastal regions. Medial costs will also be higher since there will be adverse effects on people's health.

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Michael Allan McCrae | September 29, 2011 | 3:12 pm

Big 3 see no China weakness – iron ore imports could climb 60% to 1 billion tonnes

Speaking to reporters at an industry conference in Qingdao China, the world's largest iron ore miners said on Wednesday they have seen no weakness in demand from China. Forecasts for China's imports by 2015 now top 1 billion tonnes – up more than 60% from 2010 – due to the relatively high cost and the low quality of its domestic supplies. Firm demand from China's construction sector and a drop off in India's exports have been behind the strength in spot iron ore prices which, at above $170 a tonne, have trebled from late 2008. The big three – BHP, Vale and Rio Tinto – control nearly 70% of the annual iron ore seaborne trade and dominate price talks.

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Frik Els | September 28, 2011 | 10:15 pm
Big vote of confidence for promoter of Brazil's largest gold project

Brazil must choose between potash and oil

Vale announced this week it is investing $15 billion to expand fertilizer production joining a Canadian merchant bank promoting a $4 billion potash project in the Amazon basin. There's just one problem: the land is owned by Brazil's state oil company Petrobras and they've also found oil there.

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Frik Els | September 28, 2011 | 7:44 pm

Almaden expands Ixtaca and Ixtaca North Zone, Intersects 16.85 m of 1.58 g/t Au and 212.2 g/t Ag (5.8 g/t Aueq)

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwire - Sept. 28, 2011) - Almaden Minerals Ltd. ("Almaden" or "the Company") (TSX:AMM)(NYSE Amex:AAU) is pleased to announce results from the on-going drilling at the Ixtaca Zone with holes TU-11-43, 44, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50 and 52 and CA-11-04. Holes TU-11-47, 48 and 52 were drilled 180 degrees away from the known Ixtaca veining (at a 330 azimuth) and intersected a zone of mineralisation now referred to as Ixtaca North, the orientation of which is currently poorly understood.

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Marketwire - Mining and Metals | September 28, 2011 | 1:00 pm