China produced the most gold in the world in2012, making it the largest producer for the sixth straight year, latest industry association data showed. China’s gold output increased 11.66 percent from a year earlier to hit a record high of 403.05 tonnes in 2012, the China Gold Association said Wednesday. The output was almost 100 times that of 1949, when the country produced just 4.07 tonnes, the association said. It [...]
The recent hike in prices of imported iron ore has been driven by dominant global mining firms which have made improper moves to support prices, Zhang Changfu, vice president and secretary-general of the CISA, said Thursday, calling for attention and efforts from relevant Chinese government departments to help maintain market fairness. Between late December 2012 and the middle of January, the cost of imported iron ore soared from $115 per [...]
Shares of Metallurgical Corp of China (MCC), the country’s leading metallurgical conglomerate, dropped by 2.7 percent Thursday in Shanghai trading after the company reported an expected loss of 7.2 billion yuan ($1.2 billion) in 2012, including a loss of 3.1 billion yuan in Australia’s largest magnetite iron ore mine project. MCC was hired by CITIC Pacific, a steel and property company controlled by State-owned CITIC Group, to build the Sino [...]
The Aluminium Corporation of China, or Chalco, said on Monday it will take legal action if Mongolia breaks its long-term coal supply contract. Mongolia’s state-owned company Erdenes-Tavan Tolgoi (E-TT), which owns the 7.5 billion-ton Tavan Tolgoi project, wants to renegotiate a 2011 coal supply deal worth $250 million with Chalco. E-TT last week delayed an IPO of up to $3 billion, blaming problems with infrastructure and the deal with Chalco, [...]
A decline in China’s 2012 rare-earth exports was caused by smuggling, weak external economic conditions and relatively high prices, insiders told the Global Times Tuesday. China’s rare-earth exports last year reached 16,265 tons, a drop of 3.5 percent compared to the year before, according to statistics released Tuesday by Hong Kong-based China Customs Statistics Information Service Center. The 2012 rare-earth export volume accounted for just 53 percent of the total [...]
Vale SA, the world’s second largest mining company, is considering setting up an iron ore distribution center in Zhanjiang port in South China’s Guangdong Province, industry sources said Tuesday. The distribution center would improve Vale’s access to its top market China, which has not allowed the company’s giant iron ore carriers, or Valemaxes, to berth at its ports after one vessel docked at Dalian port in December 2011. Vale built [...]
A Chinese mining company targeted by a contentious local protest in northwestern Myanmar on Tuesday expressed confidence in the result of an independent investigation led by Myanmar’s opposition icon Aung San Suu Kyi, hoping the probe could wind up the nearly three-month-old costly row. Dong Yunfei, a Yangon-based senior manager for Wanbao Mining Ltd, said that the investigation commission was expected to release its report on February 2, which would [...]
Demand for iron ore has slumped amid decreased building, but prices for imports still flexed their muscles last year Prices for imported iron ore got quite a workout in 2012. The price soared from less than US$ 90 per ton in September to US$ 155 per ton in January. In December alone, it rose nearly US$ 40. “I felt deeply that iron ore prices are elusive and hard to judge,” [...]
The Gold Mine Force of the Chinese People’s Armed Police Force (APF) has prospected dozens of tons of gold resources and tens of thousands of tons of metal resources, and completed thousands of square kilometers of regional geological and mineral exploration since its transitional development in 2012, the reporter learnt from the force in early January 2013. According to related arrangements by the State Council and the Central Military Commission [...]
China National Gold Group Corp, the country’s largest gold producer, confirmed Wednesday that it has halted talks with Canada’s Barrick Gold, the world’s largest gold producer, over the possible takeover of Barrick’s unit in Africa, for the purpose of risk prevention. “We will not continue talks with Barrick Gold about the takeover after weighing the potential returns to our company. We decided to end the talks in order to avoid [...]