World number two miner Rio Tinto has taken a majority stake in Ivanhoe Mines, its partner on the massive Oyu Tolgoi project in Mongolia, purchasing a 51% interest. A favourite stock of punters, Ivanhoe surrendered 4% in Toronto on Tuesday.
Reuters reports that Toyota has developed a technology to substitute rare earths used in its hybrid vehicles. The company, which has a strong lead in environmentally friendlier car sales around the world said it would be able to bring the technology to market within two years if REE prices don't fall.
As attractive deposits become harder and harder to find in traditional markets miners are pushing the limits of the political risk they are willing to take on. But things can go spectacularly wrong.
Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE:FCX), which operates the world's largest gold and copper mine in Papua, Indonesia, said that its 4Q net income tumbled to $640 million or 67 cents per share compared with net income of $1.5 billion or $1.63 per share a year ago.
The Globe & Mail reports Ivanhoe Mines, building Mongolia’s Oyu Tolgoi, will scrap a controversial “poison pill” that clears the way for Rio Tinto, which already owns 49% of the Vancouver-based company, to do a complete takeover. The shareholder provision would have triggered an automatic rights offer estimated at $73 billion.
Perceiving a cloudy future for world markets, Ivanhoe Mines (NYSE:IVN) announced that they had negotiated an additional US$1.8 billion bridge financing for Oyu Tolgoi.
Gold jewellery demand in India, a major global market, is estimated to have risen 5 to 7 per cent in 2011 and is set to grow a further 10 to 15 per cent this year with bullion prices falling back after recent gains, the head of Gitanjali Gems, India's biggest jewellery retailer said on Sunday.
Joy Global subsidiary P&H Mining Equipment is to invest $25 million in setting up a manufacturing and servicing facility for high-end mining equipment near Durgapur in West Bengal according to a report in India's Economic Times.