Nickel prices vaulted up by 5 percent on Friday as Inco Ltd. said it was starting an “orderly shutdown” of its Voisey’s Bay nickel mine in Canada after workers walked out.
Some 120 employees of a total workforce of 420 walked out at midnight at Voisey’s Bay, one of the world’s largest nickel mines, after talks [...]

Investors moved from uranium to molybdenum yesterday, pushing the few players in the sector higher as the sharemarket tumbled in the wake of stronger-than-expected inflation data.
Molybdenum explorer and market debutante Catalyst Metals surged 8¢ to 28¢, 40 per cent above its 20¢ issue price. Catalyst raised $3.2 million to fund exploration of its Minnie Creek [...]

Canadian nickel miner Inco Ltd. said Friday its $17.3 billion bid for rival Falconbridge Ltd. has failed and the company is “moving on,” marking an apparent victory for Anglo-Swiss mining company Xstrata PLC in its hostile attempt to take over Falconbridge.
Inco said not enough Falconbridge shares were tendered by midnight Thursday, and it has instructed [...]

Deputy Energy Minister, K.T. Hammond, has disclosed that prices of petroleum products in the country are not determined by crude oil prices as is being perceived by sections of the public.
He told Parliament that following government’s decision to deregulate the petroleum downstream market in 1994, pricing of petroleum products has been based on import parity.
“Product [...]

Metal-Tech slumped today after the speciality metal and metal-based chemicals firm said its Uzbek subsidiary is encountering significant disruption of its supply of molybdenum raw material.
Uzmetal Technology, jointly owned with two Uzbekistan government owned companies, blamed mineralogical problems of a government owned mine and a contractual dispute between Uzmetal and its molybdenum supplier.
The company [...]

Ratan Tata will soon become the latest of a series of top industrialists to land his private jet at Bhubaneshwar, the dusty capital of Orissa, whose vast deposits of high quality coal, iron ore and bauxite have made the eastern state the hottest investment destination in India.
This month plans have been confirmed or proposals announced [...]

ZIMTRADE, in conjunction with the Ministry of Industry and International Trade, will lead a trade mission to Brazil and Venezuela in August in an effort to help local companies expand their external markets.
The mission is taking place under the auspices of the National Economic Development Priority Programme (NEDPP). The trade body said there were business [...]

Champassak province is located in the south part of Laos, it is attracted both Lao and foreign businessmen headed to do business, especially in industrial handicraft sector, which increased 25 percent annually since 2001.
In 2001 the province has 2,794 factories, most of them invested in industrial production, in 2005 increased by 84% or 5,141 producing [...]