Following the announcement by the Treasurer of the Commonwealth of Australia on March 27 that he would not approve the proposed takeover of OZ Minerals by China Minmetals Non-ferrous Metals Co if Prominent Hill was part of the transaction, OZ Minerals has negotiated commercial terms for a transaction involving the sale of certain assets to Minmetals. […]

Active Control Technology (ACT) has a new purchase order for ActiveMine, a premier wireless voice communications and tracking system for mines. The system will be installed at an underground coal mine in Illinois that plans rapid growth and long-term operations. The initial installation, scheduled for April 2009, will be the first commercial ActiveMine deployment in Illinois.

Polo Resources has executed an option deed dated March 30, 2009 with Peabody Energy pursuant to which Peabody may acquire a 50% interest in a joint venture formed to hold all of Polo’s coal and uranium assets in Mongolia. Pursuant to the option, Peabody would invest up to $25.8 million to receive a 50% interest […]

Pieter Du Plessis has been appointed Chief Executive Officer of the global Bateman Engineering Projects strategic business unit of Bateman Engineering. He is an Executive Director of Bateman Engineering N.V. Du Plessis was previously CFO of Bateman Engineering and has been with the Bateman Engineering Group for 18 years, during which time he has held key operational, […]

The theme for this year’s Australian Mining Technology Conference is Technology solutions for challenging financial times. The meeting will be held at the University of Queensland Business School Downtown, October 27-28. The organisers are inviting abstracts from industry and research on these topics of interest: materials handling, mine planning and scheduling, automated mining technologies, operational decision support, orebody definition […]

Macquarie Research comments that “at this stage in the global economic downturn, it is worth highlighting the still-dominant role that China has had and will likely continue to have in demand, supply and pricing. For the most part China has had a surprisingly strong positive impact on commodity markets due to stronger-than-expected demand and also […]