Rio Tinto’s Icelandic aluminium plant attracts Glencore — sources

Current operational costs for producers have reached $37 to $40 per barrel. Benchmark U.S. crude, meanwhile, is trading at around $50 a barrel.

In the second half of 2014 the businesses bound for South32 generated $5bn worth of revenue and almost $890m of earnings before interest and tax.

Canada's J.D. Irving Ltd. hopes to build a massive open-pit copper and gold mine at the state's Bald Mountain.

The potash and oil-rich province was placed at the top of the Fraser Institute's annual rank of mining companies.

The figure, estimated by doctors, is based on the health costs and lost productivity from coal-related respiratory and cardiac issues.

The mine, Harmony's single largest gold producer, will likely remain closed for an indefinite period while a probe is held.

The new rules only apply to future payments and not amounts already owed.

The Arshanovsky open cut mine is expected to yield 10 million tonnes of coal a year once at full capacity.

The figure represents 9% of the company's Canadian workforce, and it is due to "soft market conditions."