Australia’s Mineral Resources drops out of race for Atlas Iron

Australia moved closer to introducing a contentious 30 percent mining tax being eyed by other countries, releasing draft laws and seeking reaction from resource companies to legislation expected to be passed later this year. The government unveiled the mining tax over a year ago but modified its plan before last August' s elections after global miners including BHP Billiton , Rio Tinto , and Xstrata launched a public campaign against it. Big miners and minority lawmakers are now broadly supportive and the legislation is expected to pass parliament and take effect on July 1, 2012.

Metso will supply crushing equipment to Fortescue Metals Group in Australia. The delivery will be completed by May 2012. The value of the order is approximately EUR34 million. The order comprises 13 units of MP1000 secondary cone crushers. Three units will be delivered to Fortescue’s Christmas Creek iron ore site, and another ten units will go to the Solomon iron ore mine site. Both sites are located in the Pilbara region in Western Australia. The crushers will be supplied to the sites in pre-assembled, modularised form. Metso will also be providing installation and commissioning assistance of all units.

Australia said the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan would not curb the world's appetite for uranium and predicted its exports will continue to rise as its develops more mines. Spending on exploration in Australia to find more uranium is expected to rise by more than third this year, Australia's minister for mines, Martin Ferguson, said in a speech to geologists on Thursday.

Australian prospectors are scouring remote outback locations for new sources of iron ore to rival the big western lodes dominated by Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton , spurred on by China's swelling appetite. Analysts expect most of Australia's iron ore to keep coming from Western Australia's Pilbara region, the world's single largest deposit, which is seen producing about 400 million tonnes this year.

Crescent Gold Limited is pleased to announce a maiden probable gold reserve of 54,000 ounces near surface at its newly acquired Apollo Deposit in Laverton, Western Australia. Mining operations have been fast tracked and are scheduled to commence in the third quarter of this year. New drilling results and resource modelling had confirmed the probable gold reserve of 770,000 tonnes and at average grade of 2.2 grams per tonne Au (g/t gold) at the company's newly acquired Apollo deposit, less than 10 kilometres southwest of Laverton. Crescent Gold acquired the project last year from the former owners, Barrick Gold and Carbon Energy.

One of 2010’s glamour floats in Australia, Middle Island Resources Ltd (ASX: MDI) has decided to join some global majors, including BHP […]

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.