Custom seizures of gold are up 50% with one of the latest cases a father and daughter arrested trying to squirrel out 50kg of the metal in unmarked ingots.

First half market shortfall climbs to 292,000 tonnes as mine production grows just 2.4%.

Researchers in the University of York' s Green Chemistry Centre of Excellence and the Centre for Novel Agricultural Products (CNAP) are giving a whole new meaning to the concept of “green mining,” as they said Friday they will develop a technique called "phyto-mining," which uses plants to extract platinum group metals (PGM) discarded during mine processing.

BMT WBM, a subsidiary of BMT Group Ltd, has announced that it has secured a major contract with Codelco, the Chilean state owned copper mining company to deliver its unique machine health, production and payload management system. The Pulse TerraMetrix RS will be deployed at Codelco’s Mina Chuquicamata situated in north Chile.

For the third consecutive quarter, the gold market saw net de-hedging, with the hedge book falling by 188 koz or 6 tonnes.

Diversified miner Xstrata (LON:XTA) and commodities trader Glencore International (LON:GLEN) have now until October 1 to decided on the $36 billion lauded merger.

Shares in diamond exploration and development company DiamondCorp PLC (LON:DCP) went up over 24% in early trade Friday after the group struck a financing deal that will meet more than three-quarters of the costs of its Lace mine project in South Africa.

Rio Tinto’s flagship $5.2 billion copper-gold Oyu Tolgoi mine in Mongolia near the Chinese border – one of the biggest mining projects in the world – is practically ready to go, except for one “detail”: it needs power supply to kick-start operations.

The Archduke Joseph Diamond, a 76-carat gem considered one of the most renowned worldwide, may be sold for more than $15 million in Geneva on Nov. 13, the world's largest auction house Christie’s said on Friday.