Mongolia’s Oyu Tolgoi mine to lift force majeure

Anglo American's $5.4 billion sale of its 24% stake in Codelco to Mitsubishi — Japan's largest trading house — is just the beginning of further rounds of competition between Japanese trading houses for the red metal. According to Reuters, Japan's top trading houses are flush with cash and ready to compete for copper assets, which they see as good prospects as demand for the metal rises and supply tightens: The competition is likely to drive up asset prices for potentially lucrative properties holding the base metal, with the trading houses jostling for the prize of becoming the top supplier for the world's fifth biggest copper market and to tap surging demand in China and other emerging markets.

Yesterday's announcement by Australian PM Julia Gillard to consider lifting the ban on uranium sales to India is raising eyebrows at one of the country's largest iron ore producers. News.com.au reports Fortescue Metals (ASX:FMG) chief executive Neville Power questioning whether the proposed sales would benefit BHP's Olympic Dam uranium mine in South Australia: "You would wonder," Power said yesterday at Fortescue's Port Headlands wharf in Western Australia.

The Australian uranium mining industry has a sympathetic ear in Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Gillard announced she will push for the ALP to dump its ban on uranium sales to India, at its national conference next month, Adelaide Now reports: Ms Gillard will ask the ALP's national conference to overturn long-standing party policy that allows uranium to be sold only to nations who have signed up to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

Japan's top nickel producer, Sumitomo Metal Mining Co., is predicting a glut in the supply of the metal. Bloomberg reports a global nickel surplus may soar in 2012 to the highest in four years as Europe’s debt crisis and a sluggish U.S. economy cuts demand: Supply will likely exceed demand by 54,000 metric tons in 2012, the biggest surplus since 2008, said Toru Higo, Sumitomo Metal Mining Co.’s general manager of nickel sales and raw materials. Demand outstripped supply by 63,000 tons last year, the first deficit since 2006, before moving to a surplus of 11,000 tons this year, Higo said.

Crazy Horse Resources Inc. (TSX VENTURE:CZH)(OTCQX:CRZHF) (the "Company") is pleased to announce that its new management has completed a review and scoping study of the Taysan Copper-Gold Porphyry Project in Batangas Province on Luzon Island in the Philippines.

Overall construction at Oyu Tolgoi continues to advance on budget and reached a 54.4% level of completion at the end of Q3'11. Key elements of the project, including the concentrator complex, primary crusher and tailings-thickening ponds, remain ahead of schedule. Total capital invested in the project to the end of Q3'11 was approximately $3.2 billion. Facilities required for first ore production in mid-2012 remain on schedule and commercial production is expected to commence in the first half of 2013.

The Economic Times reports gold and diamond jewellery sales across India fell by 25-30% in grammage terms during Diwali due to rising gold prices and a noticeable shift to coins and bars, said a leading industry body which represents 300 000 jewellers. India is world's number one gold jewellery market and the sales figures can be seen as a setback for the industry. In August the World Gold Council said despite a higher gold price, Indian demand grew 38% during Q2 2011 compared to the same period of 2010 and will continue to expand for the rest of the year.

Australia's Minister for Resources, Martin Ferguson, has rejected reports in the Indian press that the carbon tax and mineral resources rent tax will deter foreign investment as it pushes up the price coal imported from Australia. Australia's controversial carbon pricing scheme passed parliament last week. The laws – fiercely opposed by the country's mining sector which says it will lead to more than 20 mine closures and cost thousands of jobs – will force Australia's top 500 polluting companies to pay a tax of $24.50/tonne on carbon emissions from July 2012.

Nautilus, the first company to explore the ocean floor for polymetallic seafloor massive sulphide deposits, announced on Friday it has completed the quarter with a cash balance of $155.1 million, after successfully raising $70.5 million in the first tranche of a $98.1 million capital raising. The final tranche of C$27.6 million was received in October. The capital raising involved the issue of approximately 39 million shares at C$2.52 per share. Nautilus is developing its first project at Solwara 1, in the territorial waters of Papua New Guinea, where it is aiming to produce gold, copper and silver. The company has been granted all necessary environmental and mining permits. Nautilus also holds approximately 600,000 square kilometers of highly prospective exploration acreage in the western Pacific, in PNG, the Solomon Islands, Fiji, Vanuatu and Tonga, as well as in international waters in the eastern Pacific.