One of the more unique lots at Christie's Magnificent Jewels auction on November 29 in Hong Kong is likely to be a set of poker chips made by the Swedish artist and jeweller Kristian Ståhl. The 120 chips are made of 18K white gold and are set with a total of 5,160 calibrated top-quality diamonds, rubies and sapphires. But what makes the set truly unique is that each chip was sliced from the 1 million year old Muonionalusta meteorite that contains iron, nickel and rare earths. The set is estimated at $100,000 – $150,000 and Stahl said he was inspired to create it after his Siberian mammoth ivory dice sold well at auction last year.

A preliminary economic assessment for the Danakhil potash project in Ethiopia pegs the capital costs at $797 million. Canadian potash junior Allana Potash announced the figure yesterday while also outlining plans to raise the capital during a conference call to investors. CEO Farhad Abasov said during the call that nearly all the debt funding would come from development agencies such as the International Finance Corp (IFC), the African Development Bank and export-import banks from the US, Canada and Europe. The remaining $300 million would come from the sale of equity stock.

Pele Mountain Resources Inc. (TSX Venture: GEM; OTCQX: GOLDF) (“Pele” or the “Company”) today announced that processing design improvements have resulted in sharply higher recoveries of critical rare earth oxides (“REO”), including neodymium, dysprosium and yttrium oxides, (Pele’s “Big 3 REO”) at its Eco Ridge Mine Rare Earths and Uranium Project (“Eco Ridge” or the “Project”) in Elliot Lake,Ontario.

By buying the stake held by defunct broker MF Global, JP Morgan has dramatically boosted its influence in the battle to acquire the London Metal Exchange. As the biggest shareholder JP Morgan now has stronger input into any changes proposed by suitors while making a tidy profit from any sale, but retains the option to team up with others to block a takeover, analysts and industry sources told Reuters. JP Morgan now has a stake of 1.4 million shares or 10.9%, jumping ahead of the former dominant shareholder, Goldman Sachs, but the banks have also come under scrutiny over possible conflicts of interest as it also owns metal warehouses and proved brokerage services. One of the last bastions of open outcry trading, the 134-year old exchange handles some 80% of global trade in metals futures.

The Royal Canadian Mint has a hit on its hands after raising $600 million from the sale of its exchange traded fund alternative, exchange traded receipts backed by physical gold bullion held in the mint’s facilities in Ottawa, Ontario. The Canadian mint, which introduced the ETRs just over three weeks ago, says that ETRs are different than other gold investment products since the purchaser of an ETR owns the actual gold rather than a unit or share in an entity that owns the gold. Given the money raised, the Globe and Mail calculates that the ETRs may be the largest initial public offering of the year.

Full scale installations of the InLine Pressure Jig (IPJ) continuous gravity recovery (CGR) circuits at Pirquitas (Silver Standard Resources) and Kloof (Gold Fields) provide further evidence of the strong correlation of Gekko’s CGR laboratory test work protocol and plant results.

Brazil has temporarily banned Chevron from drilling in the country after it caused an oil spill off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, raising doubts about the company’s role in one of the industry’s biggest investment programmes. Late on Wednesday, Brazil’s National Petroleum Agency (ANP) accused the U.S. company of negligence late on Wednesday, announcing it would suspend all of Chevron’s drilling until it clarified the reasons for a spill that released almost 3,000 barrels of oil into the sea earlier this month. Analysts believe that the Brazilian government is keen to make an example of Chevron as a warning to other foreign companies looking to take a share of Brazil’s pre-salt reserves, which are estimated to contain as much as 50bn barrels of oil.

Peru's government urged opponents of Newmont Mining's proposed $4.8 billion Conga gold mine project to refrain from violence during a protest scheduled for today as President Ollanta Humala scrambles to solve the bitter dispute.

London-listed base minerals explorer EMED Mining (LON:EMED) enjoyed a 6.5% bump in its share price Wednesday on news that the government of Andalucia is supporting a restart of its Rio Tinto copper mine. The mine has no connection to the Anglo-Australian mining giant of the same name. EMED said "the Junta de Andalucia has made clear public policy statements committing support for the company’s plans to restart the Rio Tinto Mine as soon as possible, the most recent such statement being in Minas de Rio Tinto last week by the Minister for Economy in Andalucia."