Copper snapshot: Eight companies hunting for the red metal

Two of the 33 Chilean miners trapped during 69 days underground in 2010 are back in the mining world, after over a year of vain efforts to find a job, reports local online news site SoyCopiapo.cl.

Peruvians in the northern region of Cajamarca are not giving up easily in their fight over Newmont Mining's proposed Conga copper-gold mine.

Talks between the Ecuadorian government and Kinross Gold have stalled over the country's largest mine, Fruta del Norte.

Vale is the world's largest producer of iron ore and a top nickel miner, reported a quarterly net profit of $4.67 billion, compared to $5.9 billion in the same quarter last year.

Goldcorp reported fourth quarter gold production of 687,900 ounces at a total cash cost of $261 per ounce, leading to record revenues of $1.5 billion and operating cash flows before working capital changes of $831 million. 

Gold mining in Colombia is shining bright as major gold players are expected to invest U.S. $ 2,100 million by 2015, reports local newspaper La Republica.

Peru’s long-running Conga mine dispute moved slightly forward on Tuesday after the government appointed foreign engineers to oversee an independent review of Newmont Mining Corp.'s stalled $4.8 billion gold project, reports La Republica.

A week after announcing substantial profits and the expansion of their vast Western Australia iron ore operations, BHP Billiton (NYSE: BHP) and Rio Tinto (NYSE:RIO) said yesterday that they would spend $US 4.5 billion on the Escondida copper mine in Chile.

After over two months of futile negotiations behind closed doors between Chile's state-owned copper giant Codelco and global miner Anglo American, a resolution of the dispute that have seen both parties sunk in a legal battle seems far off, said Codelco's CEO Diego Hernandez to a local daily.