Study on impacts of uranium mining to extend Quebec moratorium another year

Europe's largest copper producer Aurubis sees a trend for rising copper prices thanks to higher demand for more electronics goods, its chief executive told a German paper. "Even if there may be short-terms price swings in either direction... demand for copper is rising with increasing prosperity in countries such as China," Bernd Drouven told Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

Debt-saddled Greece has a new revenue source in the form of two gold mines that have been approved by the country's environment minister, George Papaconstantinou, FT reported on Friday. The newspaper said that European Goldfields has received final approval to build two large gold mines in northern Greece, named Olympias and Skouries, near Thessaloniki. The AIM-listed miner plans to spend $500 million to build the mines and a total of 1.3 billion euros throughout the life of the mines.

Gold's performance has eclipsed that of gold mining stocks this year, but gold equities now are likely to take the upper hand as the flow of cheap US cash slows and miners boast juicy margins and good growth prospects. Gold's status as a quasi-currency and safe haven has helped pushed the price of the metal up about 20 per cent since the start of the year to above $US1,520 an ounce, making it one of the top performing asset classes of 2011.

Platinum, palladium to resume uptrend soon Commerzbank looks for Platinum to rise into year-end. These markets “tightened considerably” last year due to a rebound in demand following the recession-related weakness of the previous year. “The

Brokers Collins Stewart and Evolution Securities were upbeat about iron ore producer Ferrexpo (LON:FXPO), which released production figures today. The firm reported numbers for the second quarter of 2011 revealing that pellet production from its own ore had increased 6.9 percent compared to Q1.

The Yorkshire Post reports Sirius Minerals has started a concept study at its York Potash project, paving the way for mining to begin at the UK’s only seam of potash. Sirius has secured mineral rights for 631 sq km of land between Whitby and Scarborough with plans to open a new potash mine and create up to 5,000 jobs. Sirius is about to start drilling two temporary boreholes in the North York Moors National Park. Once it gets an idea of what the potash seam looks like under the ground it can plan where to site the mine.

AFP reports the Antwerp diamond industry, world capital of the gem, on Monday announced an investment deal with leading Chinese bank ICBC, which could act as an intermediary to provide finance for diamond transactions in Antwerp. Around 80% of the trade in uncut diamonds and half of world trade in cut stones transits through the Flemish town, which is facing increasing competition, including from India.

Canadian miner High River Gold Mines Ltd said it received a 20-year mining license in Burkina Faso to explore and construct a gold mine at its Bissa gold project in West Africa. The company, which has properties located mainly in Russia and Burkina Faso in Africa, said the license could be renewed.

It is reported that Russian mining and steel producing company Evraz Group is going to build a new section rolling mill in southern Russia. The production capacity of the mill is expected to be 450,000 tonnes of products per year.