UBS says it’s staying long gold as price now destined for $1,600

Anglo-Australian diversified miner Rio Tinto announced today it has completed the formation of its joint venture with a group led by China's Chalco, subsidiary of state-owned aluminum giant Chinalco, to operate the Simandou iron ore project in Guinea.

A disease all-too-familiar to early coal miners from Europe and North America has found its way to China- where technology for making coalming safer is still decades behind the West.

In 1992 in the junior mining sector, nobody was paying attention to diamonds. Then Lac de Gras was discovered. Within four years, there were 200 diamond exploration companies. Twenty years later, there are six junior companies still in the game. The REE junior space will be similar, but in a shorter timeframe.

Diversified miner BHP Billiton (NYSE:RIO) today became the third iron giant to join the new China Beijing Metals Exchange (CBMX), only a few days after competitors Vale (NYSE:VALE) and Rio Tinto (NYSE:RIO) did the same.

In another attempt to reduce its dependence on China's strangehold on rare earth element supply, Honda announced that its dealers will start to recycle old cars to extract the rare earth metals from the nickel-metal hydride batteries.

In a supply risk index of chemical elements that are of economic value, four elements placed ahead of rare earth.

Copper prices will continue dipping but only until the middle of this year, at which point they should start rising again, according to the latest Thomson Reuters’ GFMS Copper Survey and members of the industry.

While China's steel output is hitting a record rate of over 2 million tonnes per day stockpiles of iron ore are growing at a clip of 1 million tonnes per week at the country's ports.

Australian analysts from Foster Stockbroking say confidence in rare earths miner Lynas Corporation (ASX:LYC) is returning after the Malaysian High Court dismissed an appeal against the company's Advanced Materials Plant (LAMP).