Gold miner Centamin’s core earnings beat expectations, shares rise

Strikes are looming in South Africa's gold and platinum sectors which could threaten global supplies at a time when commodity prices are red hot. South Africa's powerful National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) said on Wednesday wage talks with the country's main gold miners were deadlocked and it was preparing for a strike.

The Namibian reports 500 workers at Rio Tinto's Rossing uranium mine in Namibia downed tools on Tuesday in a dispute over production incentives. The news comes in the wake of a senior Rio Tinto executive telling Dow Jones on Monday that the mine – which accounts for over 5% of world production of uranium oxide – is losing money at the current price of under $55 per pound of U3O8. Rossing which lies partly inside the Namib-Naukluft Park (pictured) has produced uranium since 1976. Rio Tinto owns 70% while the Iranian government with 15% is the second largest shareholder.

Zambia's Daily Mail reports Zambia is set to enter the world’s top five copper producers in the next three years as Vale South Africa, First Quantum Minerals Limited and Vedanta Resources Plc lead more than US$6 billion of investment in the country’s mines, an analyst at Wood Mackenzie unit Brook Hunt has said.

It has been reported that copper output in Zambia, Africa's top producer of the metal declined to 308,777 tonnes in the first five months of 2011 from 326,877 tonnes in the same period last year, the central bank said.

Gold mines in Mali are an underexploited treasure trove for commodity investors, the supervisory board chairman of German-listed Pearl Gold told Reuters in an interview, Mineweb reports.

Zambian President Rupiah Banda opened the country's largest coal mine Friday, after Singapore's Nava Bharat took over majority shares and invested $750 million (525 million euros) at the once defunct state entity. Nava Bharat, a Singapore subsidiary of India's Nava Bharat Ventures, has a 65 percent stake in Maamba Collieries, with Zambia's government owning 25 percent through its Zambia Copper Mines Investment Holdings.

Advanced stage uranium explorer Deep Yellowannouned that its wholly-owned Namibian operating entity, Reptile Uranium Namibia Ltd ('RUN') has made a new alaskite discovery at target MS7, which was recently identified from structural and geological mapping. MS7 is only 2.5 kilometres southwest of the company's Ongolo Alaskite deposit, which has a JORC compliant resource of 6.9 Million tonnes at 410 ppm for 6.2 Million Pounds U3O8 at a 275 ppm cut-off. Ongolo is a key component of the Company's flagship Omahola Project.

Zimbabwe’s state-controlled Herald newspaper reported on Thursday the Harare government is investigating De Beers over claims it smuggled out gems worth "hundreds of millions of dollars" from the controversial Chiadzwa fields. De Beers spent eight years exploring the fields, but later claimed it had failed to find any meaningful deposits according to Zimabwe's deputy mines minister. Diamonds were found by villagers in Chiadzwa in 2006, leading to a frenzied diamond rush that was eventually crushed by the army. Zimbabwe's diamonds are the subject of an international ban although most industry watchers believe it is being widely flouted.

Pacific Wildcat Resources announced the initial NI 43-101 compliant independent Niobium mineral resource estimate report for the Mrima Hill Niobium and Rare Earth Project in Kenya. The Niobium mineral resource estimate is from surface down to a maximum depth of 30 metres with 83% of the mineral resource tonnes being found in the top 20 metres.