Institutional shareholders in Riversdale Mining are moving toward backing global miner Rio Tinto's sweetened A$3.9 billion takeover offer for the Mozambique-focused coal miner, Riversdale's chief executive said on Thursday. Rio Tinto raised its offer to A$16.50 a share on Thursday in a final bid to woo key shareholders who have held up the deal, and extended the offer for a third time, to April 1.

Riversdale Mining head Steve Mallyon has backed Rio Tinto's increased offer for the coal company, warning investors there was no hint of a competing bid, The Wall Street Journal reported. The global giant today said it would increase its offer to $16.50 a share from $16 a share, if it gained more than a 50 per cent interest in the Mozambique-focussed company by March 23. Rio said it would not increase its offer beyond that point unless there was a competing proposal.

Equinox Minerals would consider selling some of Lundin Mining's assets in order to clear off debt, the company's CEO said in a conference call to analysts on Thursday. Equinox has bid CAD$4.8 billion in a challenge to Inmet Mining's friendly merger with Lundin, but needs a $3.2 billion bridge loan, according to the story by Bloomberg. “We would consider asset sales in the context of non-core, non-copper assets,” Craig Williams, chief executive of the Perth-based company, said today. Equinox may sell Lundin’s Zinkgruvan zinc mine in Sweden, he said.

HudBay Minerals posted some big gains in its fourth-quarter and year-end financials, the Toronto-based miner reported on Wednesday. Net earnings in Q4 2010 more than tripled to $24.5 million, compared to $7.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2009. Year-end numbers were also impressive, with net earnings of $73 million — a 475% increase over 2009 after adjusting for gains on the sale of investments, the company stated.

Bayfield Ventures Corp. announced a $5 million brokered private placement Wednesday, with proceeds going towards the company's Rainy River gold project in northern Ontario. The deal is expected to close on April 7. The 100%-owned Rainy River property contains three mineralized claim blocks. The March 2010 NI 43101 report showed 2.37 million indicated ounces of gold at 1.3 g/t, with an additional 2.66 million ounces inferred at 1.2 g/t Au.

China's move on Kalahari Minerals could flush out other bidders for the uranium miner but even long-term suitor Rio Tinto may balk at getting into a bidding war with such a formidable foe.

Lake Shore Gold (LSG.TO) expects to double the size of its gold resource over the next 12 months and aims to produce about 300,000 ounces a year of gold by 2013, said one of the junior miner's top executives on Tuesday. "We don't think it's unreasonable to think that we may have found a new century of gold mining in a century-old mining camp," said Mark Utting, Lake Shore's head of investor relations.

Northern Star Resources (ASX:  NST) said the resource inventory at its Paulsens Gold Mine in Western Australia has increased to 226,000 ounces while […]

Northgate Minerals Corp.’s Kemess South gold mine in British Columbia is about to close. In fact, it might be happening as we […]