Cameco handed court victory over WA uranium prospect

The Australian reports Tim Netscher the new chief executive of Gindalbie Metals took over after the miner in March announced a second cost blowout at its West Australian Karara joint venture. At the time, Netscher, 60, was working for Newmont Mining and thinking about swapping executive roles for non-executive positions, but the Gindalbie offer was too good to refuse. The multilingual Netscher, who speaks Afrikaans, Indonesian, German, Spanish and English, knows that Gindalbie's Karara magnetite project is at a crucial stage of development, but the mining industry veteran is not shy about a challenge.

Mining giants warned Australia on Wednesday that its planned carbon-reduction scheme could cost the industry as much as $25 billion through 2020, cut coal production by a third and send investment in that sector tumbling 13 percent. "Australia is walking the plank," Seamus French, who runs the coal division of miner Anglo-American Plc , told a conference, a day after the Australian government's climate-change adviser suggested how carbon emissions should be taxed.

Azumah Resources Ltd (ASX: AZM) said today it has secured an 11% stake in Castle Minerals Ltd (ASX: CDT) through a holding of 11.081 million shares. Azumah's managing director Stephen Stone said the company viewed the holding as a strategic investment that would increase Azumah's options should any of the growing market-based speculation about consolidation in the West African gold sector unfold.

Australia's government urged companies on Monday to tighten vigilance over cyber attacks launched offshore against some of the world's biggest resource firms and other businesses, warning high-tech threats were intensifying. Lockheed Martin Corp , the U.S. government's top information technology provider, raised concern about cyber hacking at the weekend, complaining of a pattern of frequent attacks on it from around the world.

Australia's Fortescue Metals said on Thursday that due to weak credit market conditions it had dropped plans to proceed with a previously announced $1 billion unsecured term loan facility. The loan was launched in the United States on Monday by JP Morgan , according to Loan Pricing Corp, a Reuters news service. It was syndicated in the range of 375-400 basis point over London Interbank Offered Rates (Libor), it said.

Chief operating officer of Alacer Gold Corporation Louw Smith told the Resources and Energy Symposium in the Australian mining city of Broken Hill that there were growth developments at both the company's operations in Western Australia and in Turkey.

The boom in resource industry wealth flowing from iron ore and coal exports to China and India has created a record number of billionaires in Australia, reports the Sydney Morning Herald. The latest to top the billionaires club Down Under is iron ore queen Gina Reinhart, who has become the richest person ever in Australia, worth an estimated $10.3 billion. Reinhart is the first woman to to top BRW's Rich 200 list. The list shows Australia now has 35 billionaires, five more than last year, and a cut-off point of $215 million, which is $30 million higher than last year's cut-off of $185 million.

Hot on the heels of a lacklustre listing by Swiss commodities and mining behemoth Glencore, news comes of another multi-billion dollar natural resources IPO going awry. Resourcehouse planned to raise $3.6bn on the Hong Kong market on Thursday but has now postponed the listing to at least the end of the month. The Australian iron ore and coal miner has made three previous attempts to go public in 2009 and 2010.

The executive chairman of private company Direct Nickel Julian Malnic told the Resources & Energy Symposium in Broken Hill in New South Wales that the company was currently moving to raise $A15 million ($US14.7 M) to utilise an ASX-listed shell company for listing.