Prices are right for Birch Lake initiative with promise of jobs, but critics say environment will pay heavy cost
Beneath the ground at a Birch Lake mining site near Babbitt are a lot of non-ferrous minerals — copper, nickel, platinum, palladium, even a bit of gold.
They are minerals in demand in a mushrooming global economy. They [...]

Convergys Corp., a provider of outsourced business services, said Thursday it boosted its human resources business process outsourcing business in the Asia Pacific region with the addition and expansion of several centers.
The company either opened new centers or expanded existing ones in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Bangalore, India; Dalian, China; and Singapore. The facilities add to [...]

India is formulating a new mining policy aimed at attracting foreign investment of Rs.1 trillion ($21.5 billion) and creating 500,000 jobs by 2011, a central minister said Thursday.
“The government intends to come out with a new policy because the existing mining policy of 1993 has become old and contains stringent provisions that restrict investors to [...]

What started last fall as a straightforward merger between Sudbury’s two long-time nickel producers threatens to become a sell-off to U.S. interests of a huge chunk of Canada’s mining industry — one of our few industries in which Canadians still call most of the shots.
The proposed $40 billion (U.S.) mega-merger announced yesterday among the Canadian [...]

South African engineering firm Bateman Engineered Technologies and Chinese heavy-machinery manufacturer Citic Heavy Engineering have entered into a formal agreement to market Citic’s range of mills and tube mills in Southern Africa.
The deal, facilitated by The Beijing Axis (TBA) and unveiled on Monday, will see Bateman Engineered Technologies, a division of Bateman Engineering NV, acquiring [...]

THE government is expected to give its approval to the country’s first ever coal policy very soon. The final draft of the coal policy will be placed before the Cabinet shortly. Once endorsed, the coal policy will give certain basic rights to the government to lease out the existing coal mines of the country, including [...]

Mineral production from mining and quarrying sector in April 2006 increased 4.31 per cent at Rs 6,251 crore, as compared to the corresponding month in the previous year, with coal contributing 41 per cent to the total revenues.
Coal contributed 41 per cent to the total revenue generated at Rs 2,560 crore. Petroleum (crude) at Rs [...]

Asian mining stocks climbed, led by BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto Group, after both companies won an increase in iron ore prices from Chinese steelmakers.
An agreement on iron ore prices is what “the market wanted,” said Jason Teh, who manages $4 billion at Investors Mutual in Sydney. “The Chinese ultimately had no choice but to [...]

Asia must use energy more efficiently because the actions of the world’s most populous continent will have a large bearing on climate change, Asian Development Bank president Haruhiko Kuroda said.
“Climate change is a reality that we can no longer ignore and one that we have to take immediate action to mitigate and adapt to,” Kuroda [...]

Sinopec, China’s second-biggest oil company, agreed to buy an oil-producing unit of a venture controlled by BP Plc, the Asian nation’s first significant asset in Russia.
The sale of OAO Udmurtneft will be completed in “the near future,” TNK-BP said today in an e-mailed statement. The value of the transaction wasn’t disclosed. The unit is worth [...]