Brumadinho dam disaster shrinks Vale iron ore output 34%

Australian Mines aims to produce 53,300 tonnes of nickel sulphate and 8,500 of cobalt sulphate a year, making it a sizeable producer of the materials used in lithium batteries for electric vehicles.

The World Bank is targeting a total investment of $50 million, to be deployed over a 5-year timeframe.

The interest from the Chinese company underscores the massive appetite for minerals used to make electric vehicle batteries.

Global demand for strategic minerals like lithium, graphite and nickel will skyrocket by 965%, 383% and 108% respectively by 2050, according to the World Bank’s updated 2018 projections.

But with demand for lithium set to boom from above 300,000 tons a year to a million tons by 2025, mining companies need to grow fast and they prefer to do so in jurisdictions they know well.

Industrial metal markets are taking a breather as they await tangible evidence that China's latest stimulus package is feeding through to a flagging manufacturing sector.

Canada’s biggest investor on the island -- now a penny stock, with its shares down more than 50% so far this year -- is feeling the pinch of Cuba’s dire economic straits.

Glencore cut its full-year copper-output goal by about 3% and lowered production targets for other commodities from nickel to oil.

Recent drill results include 3.22 g/t platinum, 2.08 g/t palladium, 0.23 g/t gold, 0.57% copper and 0.19% nickel over 41.2 m.