Asia Gold-Price dip gives small spark to demand; India buyers unmoved

Indian-focused miner Vedanta Plc (VED.L: Quote) saw record aluminium production in its fourth quarter and a 29 percent jump in refined zinc from its Indian operations, helping it take advantage of rising metal prices.

Australian mining giant Rio Tinto has received the green signal to undertake mining activities in India, with the Orissa government granting a proposal for a fresh agreement on Thursday, April 7. State-run Orissa Minerals Development Company (OMDC), a part of the Bird Group of Companies under the Indian government's ministry of steel had been in discussions with the world's biggest mining company, Rio Tinto, for a joint venture in the state for some time now.

Mongolia's massive Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold project is expected to begin production in August 2012, sooner than forecast, said Temuulen Ganzorig, Deputy Director of Erdenes MGL which partners with Ivanhoe Mines and Rio Tinto in developing the site.

The key gold futures on the Tokyo Commodity Exchange scaled a 28-year high on Wednesday, driven by a rally to record peaks in the global gold market the day before and a weaker yen.

Both gold and silver are having a bull run in India, but silver is definitely having the better run of late and […]

Landslides triggered by heavy rain buried some houses and mining tunnels on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, killing at least three people and wounding two others, an army spokesman said on Thursday.

SouthGobi Resources Ltd. (TSX:SGQ)(HK:1878) announced today that new, independent estimates prepared by Minarco-MineConsult ("MMC"), have updated coal resources and proven and probable mineral reserves contained at the company's Ovoot Tolgoi Complex, (comprised of the Ovoot Tolgoi Coal Mine and the Ovoot Tolgoi Underground Deposit). Independent estimates for coal resources have also been updated by MMC for the company's Soumber Deposit (comprised of the Soumber Field and the Biluut Field).

Ivanhoe Mines announced its financial results for the year ended December 31, 2010. The approved 2011 capital budget for Oyu Tolgoi is estimated at $2.3 billion. Principal components of the 2011 construction program include $561 million for the 100,000-tonne-per-day concentrator complex; $186 million for the initial mining fleet and to start pre-stripping of the Southern Oyu open-pit mine; and $713 million for project infrastructure, electrical power and completion of the process-water supply. The number of workers assigned to the Oyu Tolgoi site recently surpassed 7,000 for the first time. On-site jobs at Oyu Tolgoi are expected to peak at almost 14,000 in mid-2011, with an additional 3,700 Mongolians receiving skills training sponsored by Oyu Tolgoi.

FLSmidth has today signed a contract in Jakarta worth in excess of USD 135m (DKK 700m) with PT Adaro Indonesia, a subsidiary of PT Adaro Energy Tbk., to supply material handling equipment to its coal mine in the Tanjung district of South Kalimantan, some 1000 km from the Indonesian capital, Jakarta. The material handling equipment will be part of Adaro's expansion of its mining operations and will decrease the average hauling distance of the overburden trucking operations as well as reduce the company's dependency on oil. The contract comprises an out-of-pit overburden crushing and conveying system, consisting of FLSmidth ABON sizers, RAHCO overland conveyors, and RAHCO mobile stacking conveyors. The system has a capacity of 12,000 tonnes per hour and an annual overburden volume of 40 million bank cubic metres. The contractual elements regarding construction, supervision and management, as well as field service, will be supplied by FLSmidth Indonesia.