Demand for battery metals to jump 500% by 2050

Chile, the world’s biggest copper producing country, has warned that the global resources sector needs to pay far more attention to its environmental and social licence obligations if new projects worth billions of dollars are to get up.

The Chilean government has removed BHP Billiton's US$4 billion Spence copper expansion project from its 10-year development timeline, saying it expects the world's largest miner will miss its targeted deadline of first production by 2020.

The China-Brazil deal means that in just three years Vale will be producing more than BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto combined.

The increasing engagement of Latin America with Asia may potentially be at the expense of Australia’s traditional sense of right to be a major Asian player, expert says.

The firm created a new division in April to evaluate deals in those areas, and in the past six months has made mining infrastructure-related investments in the U.S. and Africa.

Only lower grade fines are oversupplied shows new research report.

Capacscaya also has significant amounts of copper, zinc, cobalt, aluminum and iron ore.

Much of the overall decline in reported gold output was due to a significant quarter-on-quarter production declines from AngloGold Ashanti, Goldcorp, and Sibanye Gold.

Andrew Mackenzie also warned the proposed would damage the Australia’s economy and shift investment to main foreign competitor Brazil.