Australia ditches iron ore probe after lobby, China-Brazil supply deal

Hitachi has built an 11-kilowatt motor that uses no rare earth materials. The motor took four years to develop, and commercial production is expected in two years.

Sumatra Copper & Gold has released a new reserve estimate for its Tembang gold-silver project in southern Sumatra, Indonesia.

Peruvian company Grupo Brescia announced today that it is going ahead with plans to further diversify its investments by mining for copper in neighbouring Chile, reports Portal Minero.

More than one billion people watched the rescue of 33 Chilean miners from a collapsed mine in 2010. Today, one of them has decided to venture underground for the first time since the accident during a tour to a Saskatchewan potash mine.

Gold prices could fall below $1,550, returning to record highs by the end of this year, Thomson Reuters GFMS, a top precious metals consultancy, said this morning.

Anglo American Plc (LON:AAL) will spend over US$ 2 billion this year at its Minas-Rio 5.8-billion ton iron ore project in Brazil, the world’s second-largest exporter of the steel-making ingredient.

The nine miners trapped in a high altitude underground copper mine in Peru since last Thursday are well and with their families, after they were freed this morning (12:00 GMT).

An undersea 8.6 earthquake struck Indonesia this morning at 04:38 ET, announced the U.S. Geological survey (USGS). The movement, which triggered a tsunami alert across the Indian Ocean, has forced all mining companies in Indonesia to halt their operations until further notice.

Instead of making solar cells more efficient, MIT researchers took another tack on how to get more power out of photovoltaic cells and found that arranging them in cubes or towers can increase power output ranging from double to 20 times.