Clean energy transition to increase demand for minerals — World Bank

Rio Tinto has awarded $45 million in new railway signalling and communications contracts to international rail infrastructure group Ansaldo STS.

The prospect of mining the ocean floor may seem far-fetched, but China, motivated by its insatiable hunger for resources, has opened its eyes to the idea. According to a story in The Japan Times, China will attempt to plunge the Jialong - the world's deepest-diving manned submersible - 5,000 metres below the surface of the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and North America, exceeding the craft's previous depth of 3,759 metres.

Gold mines in Mali are an underexploited treasure trove for commodity investors, the supervisory board chairman of German-listed Pearl Gold told Reuters in an interview, Mineweb reports.

Twenty four miners were trapped in a flooded iron ore mine in east China's Shandong Province, the rescue command center said Monday. Previously, 21 miners were believed to be trapped in the mine.

Chronic labour shortages in resource-rich Western Australia could put mining projects at risk, as the state struggles to plug a shortfall of skilled workers set to balloon to 150,000 by 2017.

Five Turkish companies have been named among the world's biggest steel producers. ANKARA- Turkish companies Erdemir Group, Habas, Icdas, Diler Group and Colakoglu Metalurji were included in the world's leading steel & metal markets publication Metal

Peabody Energy has teamed up with ArcelorMittal to offer $5 billion for Australia's Macarthur Coal , the world's biggest producer of pulverised coal, as demand for steel-making raw materials intensifies. The cash offer of A$15.50 a share represents a 40-percent premium to Monday's close and comes just a day after Australia unveiled a plan to tax carbon emissions from the nation's worst polluters, or about 500 companies, including coal miners.

Much has been made of China’s insatiable appetite for the world’s natural resources but demand growth from another Asian giant is changing the dynamics of the global steel market. Indian demand for steel grew 10 percent last year, helping push global demand to a record 1.4 billion tons in 2010. Over the past two years, India’s renewed economic growth has brought a dramatic increase in the country’s steel production as well as domestic consumption.

While Western mining multinationals are conspicuous in their absence from any bids for Afghanistan's vast resources of copper and iron ore Tata Steel on Thursday joined other Indian steelmakers to bid for the Hajigak iron ore deposits 130km west of Kabul. So far only China has made any firm commitment to the country's mining sector with state-owned Metallurgical Corp's successful $3.4bn bid to build a copper mine – and a $6bn railway to go with it – that should enter production in 2014.