A batch of Glencore billionaires and an unlikely threesome who together built an Eurasian copper giant.

The last of the mining billionaires.

Two of Vale's massive Valemax carriers were in Subic Bay, Philippines for just under a month transferring cargo to smaller ships to carry iron ore onto China, because the 400,000 tonne vessels may not dock at Chinese ports.

Mining contributed $50 billion to the country’s GDP in 2011, he said, and provides “well paying” jobs for more than 300,000 Canadians.

BHP's four largest projects – Olympic Dam, the Outer Harbour iron ore infrastructure project in Australia, expansion of its US shale gas operations and Jansen potash in Saskatchewan, Canada – require $120 billion in capex costs, but will only start to contribute to the bottom line by 2023.

A small number of investment professionals around the world are competing behind the scenes to turn the gem into a commodity that would be available to investors in the way that gold has been traded through funds on exchanges.

In a scathing new BBC documentary that includes the first ever television interview with CEO Ivan Glasenberg, commodities trader Glencore is accused of allowing dumping of acid into streams, child labour and deadly underground working conditions at its copper-cobalt mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The very survival of Britain?s coal mining industry depends on the success of a massive restructuring of UK Coal, which is to be announced in the next fortnight.

For metals consultancy Thomson Reuters GFMS’s Paul Walker, looking to hedge from a position of strength would serve miners well when prices do eventually fall.