Japan’s JFE head says not expecting further rise in iron ore prices

Shares in Vancouver-based Great Panther Silver recovered early losses to trade in positive territory by midday Tuesday after the company reported disappointing silver output at its two 100%-owned silver and gold mines in Mexico. The counter opened down more than 3% before turning positive after announcing a 6% drop in silver production as a result of falling grades and unsold inventories at its Guanajuato operation which the company ascribes to an oversupply of concentrate on the world market. Silver Panther is still up 35% over the month after investors picked up the stock following record first quarter earnings.

Stillwater Mining, the only platinum and palladium producer in the U.S., announced on Monday that it will acquire Peregrine Metals for US$487.1 million. Peregrine Metals is a publicly-traded exploration and development company with gold and copper projects in Argentina and Peru. The company is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

The world's largest copper producer is shut down in a 24-hour strike that has the potential to cause severe losses for Chile's state mining company. Codelco says it could lose $41 million from today's strike

The world's largest copper producer, Codelco, is facing a 24-hour strike on Monday in opposition to a plan that workers say would move Chile's state-owned mining corporation toward privatization. The Federation of Copper Workers , which represents 15,000 of the company's 20,000 employees, called for the strike, which will be the company's first in 18 years.

Codelco, the world’s largest copper producer, will seek to sell bonds within 12 months to help finance a record $4 billion investment in its Chilean mines next year, Chief Executive Officer Diego Hernandez said. The state-owned copper company probably will raise part of the investment in U.S. dollar-denominated bonds as well as using amortization and retention of profits, Hernandez said in an interview in Bloomberg’s Santiago office yesterday.

The introduction of improvement to the Sena railroad would cost over US$200 million and take at least 18 months, the chairman of Mozambican port and rail company, Portos e Caminhos de Ferro de Moçambique, said Tuesday in Maputo. Brazilian mining group Vale and Australia’s Riversdale Mining have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in coal mining projects in Tete province and plan to use the Sena railroad to transport the coal to the port of Beira.

Unrest and strikes in Indonesia, Chile, Australia and Africa, a shortage of skilled workers in North America and rising labour costs all over the globe are quickly becoming the most serious downsides of a mining boom that started almost a decade ago. While a historically high overall jobless rate is masking spiking wages in the resources sector in the US, workers in emerging markets are shutting down operations of mining companies deemed not to be sharing record profits fairly.

Copper-zinc miner HudBay Minerals said Wednesday it has acquired the roughly 2.5m shares in Norsemont Mining it did not already own, giving it 100% ownership. The acquisition is set to increase HudBay's copper output by about 145% when Norsemont's Constancia mine in Peru comes into full production. The news comes a day after the company announced it will spend $144m to build a new concentrator at its Lalor project in Manitoba, Canada.

Dow Jones reports Argentina's Mendoza Province has lifted its suspension of the multibillion dollar Rio Colorado potash mine project being developed by Brazilian mining company Vale SA. Mendoza's Environmental Secretariat has allowed Vale to move forward with the mine after the company agreed to submit reports on its local hiring and procurement practices to the local authorities, the provincial government said in a statement.