Australia corporate watchdog expands legal action against Rio Tinto, former executives

The cyclone fuelled batterings this year of key Australian energy and mining operations should trigger a complete rethink on force majeure provisions, according to a senior resources lawyer. The caution comes as many of the country’s largest and mid-tier oil, gas and minerals producers, and owners of related export infrastructure, count the emerging full cost, liability and contractual exposure from operations shut down temporarily or permanently amid the massive floods, rain and storm damage that have swept Australia since New Year’s Day.

New York Times says that Malaysia is placing a big bet on rare earth metals: As many as 2,500 construction workers will […]

Uranium One, the world’s largest publicly-traded uranium producer, reported on Tuesday a net loss of $142.8 million in the fourth quarter. In 2009 the company reported positive earnings of $179.8 million for the same period. The loss was attributable to a one-time charges. The company said that the carrying value of the Honeymoon Uranium Project was written down by $113.5  million due to the strengthening of the Australian dollar and increased capital expenditures.

The Alice Springs-based Lhere Artepe Group has acquired 51% of the CDE Group, taking indigenous ownership of the Australian mining and civil works contracting group to 84%. CDE’s current activities include providing services to Fortescue Metals Group’s Christmas Creek iron ore mine in Western Australia through the Downer EDI contracting group, and to Xstrata for the McArthur River zinc mine in the Northern Territory.

New Gold had their best year in 2010, with increased production and declining costs resulting in record earnings and cash flow, the B.C.-based company said on Friday. Consolidated revenue for the year was $530 million compared to $324 million in 2009, which the company attributed to higher production rates and elevated gold prices. Earnings from mine operations jumped 129% to USD$203 million, compared to $89 million in the previous year.

According to U.S. embassy cables released on Wikileaks, Australia’s changes to foreign investment rules in 2009 were aimed at limiting Chinese investments […]

Argonaut Resources NL (ASX:  ARE) announced on Friday results from pre-collar assays from the Alford project (EL3969) on South Australia’s Yorke Peninsula. Highlights from the intercepts were ALDDH10: 78m at 0.62% Cu from 88m. It also included 54m at 0.86% Cu from 88m.

Southern Cross Goldfields says it has picked up high-grade, near-surface gold mineralisation at its King Brown prospect in W. Australia's Yilgarn goldfield

The Australian Government's statistics bureau (ABARE) is looking for further growth in iron ore, coal and gold exports in the current year as the commodities boom continues. PERTH (The West Australian) - Iron ore exports will climb another 12 per cent