Dollar shortage “short-term problem” for miners in Zimbabwe – minister

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.

Gold Fields’ attributable group production for the June quarter is expected to be around 872,000 gold equivalent oz, up 5% from 830,000 gold equivalent oz in Q1, the South African miner said Tuesday. During Q2, production from the country’s South Africa region was affected by six public holidays as well as two significant seismic-related accidents at the Kloof Driefontein Complex mine, which resulted in production stoppages due to safety interventions, the company said.

The introduction of improvement to the Sena railroad would cost over US$200 million and take at least 18 months, the chairman of Mozambican port and rail company, Portos e Caminhos de Ferro de Moçambique, said Tuesday in Maputo. Brazilian mining group Vale and Australia’s Riversdale Mining have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in coal mining projects in Tete province and plan to use the Sena railroad to transport the coal to the port of Beira.