A proposed new coal mine in Queensland is so massive it is likely to do more harm to the local economy than good.

Bloomberg reported that Billionaire Mr Ziyavudin Magomedov Summa Group won the right to build a RUB 44.3 billion section of a railroad to coal fields in East Siberia near deposits to be developed by Evraz Plc and OAO Severstal.

OAO GMK Norilsk Nickel, the world’s biggest producer of nickel and palladium, predicts demand for platinum group metals will rise as much as 5 percent next year, exceeding increases of as much as 3 percent for copper and nickel, as the global economy avoids a slump as severe as that seen in 2008.

China Development Bank (CDB), one of the country's three policy banks, has signed two agreements with Kazak copper giant Kazakhmys PLC, granting the mine and refinery operator 1.34 billion U.S. dollars and 1 billion yuan (158 million U.S. dollars) for a new project.

Gunmen fired at a helicopter carrying workers for the mining giant Freeport-McMoRan shortly after it took off Saturday from a town near the company’s huge gold and copper mine in eastern Indonesia, a police spokesman, Colonel Wachyono, said.

The Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement on Thursday, together with Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, announced $485 million is being given to states and tribes to eliminate health and safety hazards caused by past coal mining.

Goldcorp Inc on Friday (TSX: G, NYSE: GG) announced the approval of the amended Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) by provincial authorities in the province of Santa Cruz for the development and construction of the Cerro Negro gold project, a high-grade deposit located on the low-elevation Patagonian plains of southern Argentina.

A past-producing gold mine in Canada's Northwest Territories could be back in business thanks to moves last week by Toronto-based Merc International Minerals (CVE:MRK) Inc.

Job seekers in the Australian mining and construction industry were likely to benefit from a favourable hiring climate in the first quarter of 2012, said recruitment solutions provider Manpower.