Royalties for lithium to be set case by case in Chile – minister

Anglo American said Thursday it had filed a writ with Santiago's Court of Appeals, suing the Chilean firm for breach of contract in a dispute over its south Chilean assets.

Anglo American (LON:AAL) has increased the capital expenditure budget for its largest project in development, the Minas-Rio iron ore mine in Brazil, by 15%, the London-listed major miner announced on Tuesday. That takes the capex for the project up to US$5.78 billion.

South American Silver (TSE:SAC) stock shot up 17% in morning trading today on the Toronto Stock Exchange to $1.62 a share after the company announced the findings from its NI 43-101-qualified resource estimate of the company's Escalones copper-gold-silver project in central Chile.

Goldcorp Inc on Friday (TSX: G, NYSE: GG) announced the approval of the amended Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) by provincial authorities in the province of Santa Cruz for the development and construction of the Cerro Negro gold project, a high-grade deposit located on the low-elevation Patagonian plains of southern Argentina.

The country has decided to lift the state of emergency in the northern region of Cajamarca and reopen negotiations with protestors opposed to Newmont's $4.8bn Conga mine

Vancouver-based miner Endeavour Silver has discovered two high-grade silver/gold zones at its Guanajuato mine in Mexico and anticipates a significant increase in reserves and resources at the mine at the year-end.

Jorge Humberto Merino, an engineer who worked for the Peruvian government agency that promotes foreign investment, swore in last night as the new mines and energy minister, amid a mining crisis that has had the country under state of emergency since Dec. 4.

TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - Dec. 9, 2011) - Strait Gold Corporation (TSX VENTURE:SRD) ("Strait Gold" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has signed a binding agreement (the "Agreement") with Teck Peru S.A. ("Teck Peru"), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Teck Resources Limited ("Teck"), giving Teck Peru an option to earn up to a 75% interest in the Company's Alicia copper-gold property ("Alicia" or the "Property") in Peru by spending up to $30 million on exploration at Alicia or delivering a pre-feasibility study, making $500,000 in cash option payments and exercising the warrants referred to below. TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - Dec. 9, 2011) - Strait Gold Corporation (TSX VENTURE:SRD) ("Strait Gold" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has signed a binding agreement (the "Agreement") with Teck Peru S.A. ("Teck Peru"), a...

Codelco, the world's largest copper producer, will invest US$ 244 million to speed up the development of its Quetena copper deposit in northern Chile, an open pit operation that will produce 62,000 tons of fine copper per year.