MINING.COM Staff Writer

Direct government intervention may be needed to burst bubbles in commodity markets inflated by a new herd of financial investors, a UN study found. Excessive speculation has added around 20% to international oil prices, sending false signals to policy makers, said the report published on Sunday. Since around 2000, as commodities were perceived to have entered a super-cycle and the equities market bubble burst, oil and other raw materials have lured financial investors, as well as the producers and big consumers historically in these markets.

MarketWatch reports Rio Tinto PLC has halted export operations at one of the terminals at its Dampier iron ore port in Western Australia after a contract worker was killed when scaffolding he was working on fell into the water. An investigation by the police and Mines Department has been launched into the circumstances surrounding the accident, the Anglo-Australian company said in a statement Sunday. Rio Tinto hasn't had a fatality at its operations in the Pilbara, a region in Western Australia state that accounts for roughly 40% of the world's seaborne supplies of iron ore, since August 2003.

The Australian reports Fortescue Metals' Chinese shareholder Hunan Valin Steel plans to triple its capacity through mergers and capital investment and is eyeing a listing on the Hong Kong stockmarket to raise up to $1.68bn. The Chinese government last month began another push to consolidate the country's fractured steel industry and is planning to create six or seven mega-groups with the aim of boosting its negotiating power with iron ore giants including miners Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton. Hunan Valin is considered second-tier at the moment but wants to push production to over 30m tonnes/year, similar to industry behemoth Baosteel.

The Australian reports Tim Netscher the new chief executive of Gindalbie Metals took over after the miner in March announced a second cost blowout at its West Australian Karara joint venture. At the time, Netscher, 60, was working for Newmont Mining and thinking about swapping executive roles for non-executive positions, but the Gindalbie offer was too good to refuse. The multilingual Netscher, who speaks Afrikaans, Indonesian, German, Spanish and English, knows that Gindalbie's Karara magnetite project is at a crucial stage of development, but the mining industry veteran is not shy about a challenge.

Wood fuel, one of the oldest energy sources on the planet, could become the newest commodity market if it can overcome supply limits and green concerns as demand grows for renewable energy. Supply constraints are starting to put wood fuel into competition with the paper industry, experts say, in an uneasy reminder of existing tension between the food industry and companies making biofuels from food crops. In theory burning wood and crop waste emits less carbon than fossil fuels because it simply returns to the air carbon accumulated by plants as they grow, but that balance breaks down if stock is not replanted, or natural forests are logged.

Indonesian coal giant Adaro Energy expects 2011 coal production up 5 million tons from last year to 46-48 million tons and then to nearly 50 million in 2012, while Bayan Resources is aiming to more than double its output to 25 million tonnes by 2013. Indonesia is expected to make up 39% of the global increase in coal exports, with Adaro and top miner Bumi Resources becoming two of the top three exporters by 2015. Australia will follow closely behind in terms of growth. India will surpass Japan as the leading buyer of Indonesian coal this year, the country’s coal association told Reuters, and India’s demand will continue to surge as electricity demand is expected to rise 56% by 2017.

Vancouver-based African Queen Mines announced on Friday that it has now commenced its 2011 core drilling program covering approximately 3000m at its King Solomon Project, located north of Lake Cahorra Basa in western Tete Province, Mozambique. The project is the subject of the earn-in and joint venture with Switzerland's Opti Metal Trading, covering exploration, development and exploitation. African Queen has so far earned an interest of 51% in the project and may earn up to 85% by funding additional prescribed stages through feasibility. The company is exploring properties in Mozambique, Kenya and Ghana for gold and other metals and it is undertaking exploration in Botswana and Namibia for diamonds, gold and other metals – the licenses in Botswana comprise approximately 2890 sq km of diamond prospects.