Asia coal industry sees blue skies, ignores storm clouds: Russell

Canadian rare earth explorer Pele Mountain Resources Inc. (TSX-V:GEM)(OTCQX:GOLDF) announced today that it has entered into a binding agreement to sell its Highland Gold projects to a wholly owned subsidiary of Prodigy Gold Inc. (TSX-V:PDG) for US$1.8 million.

BHP Billiton will begin working on its ambitious Port Hedland outer harbour project this Friday, the first step of Western Australia’s biggest dredging plan, which it will cost the miner at least $10 billion.

Anglo American (LON:AAL) and Xstrata (LON:XTA) coal mines are among the four operations being investigated over probable environmental violations, after they were accused of discharging contaminated water into the Fitzroy River, located in the North East state of Queensland, Australia.

Rough diamond prices were expected to continue climbing “across the market” this year, London-listed Gem Diamonds said on Monday.

MINING.com counts more than 90 billionaires involved in minerals, metals and mining on the planet with a combined wealth of well over $300 billion.

Two of Vale's massive Valemax carriers were in Subic Bay, Philippines for just under a month transferring cargo to smaller ships to carry iron ore onto China, because the 400,000 tonne vessels may not dock at Chinese ports.

Ivanhoe and Rio Tinto not only have to deal with higher projected mining and processing costs at the mega-mine but also development delays and most worryingly, lower ore grades.

China, the world's biggest consumer of coal, said that the gross domestic product came in at 8.1% in the first quarter, the lowest figure in three years.

Harmony Gold briefly dropped to a year low of $9.68 on Friday after the company announced a steep fall-off in output for the first quarter. Now worth $4.4 billion the counter is down a third in a year, but its Papua New Guinea project may be worth that by itself.