Coal’s fading crown to get Indian polish as demand stagnates

The head of India's biggest iron ore miner says Australia's reputation as a very favorable place to invest has not been dented by the combination of a carbon tax, mining tax and escalating labour costs as the $22 billion group prepares to establish a local mining arm.

Based on new research by investment bank Macquarie titled India’s Fatal Attraction, the FT asks if India’s weddings are destroying its economy given the huge importance of gold in the culture – especially between October and January, when festival season turns into wedding season and some 20 million Indians tie the knot.

Tata Motors, India’s market leader in commercial vehicles and the world’s fourth largest truck manufacturer, has launched the new TATA Prima 3138.K 8X4 tipper equipped with an Allison 4430R transmission at the 6th International Construction Equipment and Construction Technology Trade Fair (EXCON) 2011 in Bengaluru, which is organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry. The company states that the tipper model is ideal for carrying overburden in coal, iron ore, limestone and other applications involved in the heavy mining industry.

The Philippines will offer 30 coal exploration projects in the central and northern provinces, where mining is not yet banned that may need total investments of $600 million at a tender to be held in the first quarter of 2012.

London-listed Churchill Mining Plc is threatening Indonesia to seek international arbitration, saying that the company was unlawfully deprived of a US$1.8 billion coal discovery in the jungles of Borneo Island. The East Kutai project is a huge resource with a JORC compliant estimate of 2.7 billion tonnes of coal, acquired by Churchill in 2007 through an acquisition of a 75% stake in Indonesian group Ridlatama.

A group of Indian companies and Canada's Kilo Goldmines Ltd. (CVE:KGL) have been awarded the contract to mine the Hajigak iron ore deposit in Afghanistan. MINING.com reported Nov. 19 that Indian firms were leading the chase for the huge iron ore property, which is being touted by the Afghans as the world’s largest iron ore deposit at 1.8 billion tonnes. The deposit extends over 32 kilometres and covers 16 separate zones. Bloomberg reports that President Hamid Karzai and his government awarded three of the four Hajigak blocks to seven Indian companies, led by state-owned Steel Authority of India Ltd. and NMDC Ltd., that were bidding with support from the Indian government. The fourth block was awarded to Kilo Goldmines, which is described on its website as a gold exploration and development company that is actively drilling several past-producing mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Members of a Filipino tribe are protesting after the country’s second richest businessman agreed to enter a nickel joint mining venture with a Chinese concern on the island of Palawan. Palawan was in the news recently when the Puerto Princesa subterranean river on the island was chosen as one of the world’s new seven wonders of nature, according to organizers of a global poll conducted via social media. The Philippine government vigorously campaigned for the 8.2 kilometer navigable underground river in a bid to boost tourism. South Korea’s Jeju Island, Indonesia’s Komodo and South Africa’s Table Mountain were also among the list.

A BBC poll enquiring about the public's appetite for nuclear power has delivered some surprising results. The poll by GlobeScan, commissioned for the BBC, asked 23,231 people in 23 countries with nuclear programs their opinions on nuclear power. It found that most are significantly more opposed to nuclear power than they were in 2005, with just 22% agreeing that "nuclear power is relatively safe and an important source of electricity, and we should build more nuclear power plants."

Vancouver-based junior Prophecy Coal (TSE:PCY), which moved to the TSX main board last month, has landed a major deal to build a coal-fired power plant in Mongolia. The company said yesterday its subsidiary, Eat Energy Development LLC, has received a licence from the Mongolian Energy Regulatory Authority to construct the 600-MW Chandgana power plant. It is the first thermal power plant licence to be issued by the Mongolian government. Coal for the Chandgana mine-mouth power plant will be supplied from Prophecy’s Chandgana Tal ("Tal") Deposit, for which the company has already obtained a mining licence. Tal contains 141 million tonnes of measured coal and is located 9 km north of Prophecy’s Chandgana Khavtgai project, a deposit with over 1 billion tonnes of measured and indicated coal, Prophecy states.