Despite pandemic, geoscientist employment improves in Australia

Beijing cuts off power to 26 mines in key Chinese zinc, lead production region.

The company, however, said it continues looking for a partner to take the venture off the ground.

They had flagged they would offload some of their higher-cost local operations to focus on their most profitable mines.

Not even counting the $7.7 billion in write-downs and charges, BHP’s underlying profit dropped by a painful 81% to $1.2 billion for the year to June.

The Cerrejón mine is one of the world’s largest open cut coal operations.

Report shows higher ore prices have encouraged the likes of Iran, Russia and Mongolia to increase shipments to China at faster pace than dominant players.

Glencore's will continue to curtail production in zinc, copper and other metals – it's clear why.

The coal giant also said it would review its assets in Australia to run a smaller but "more profitable" basis.

Using bacteria to extract minerals from ore is showing the potential to replace dangerous processing chemicals such as cyanide in the mining industry.