Zinc prices gained on falling Dollar and rising EURO on the back of easing tensions of US quantitative easing. Dollar has so far lost 82 pips and is trading at 1.418 per EURO.

DAYARNE SMITH Muswellbrook Shire mayor Martin Rush has urged Anglo American to tell the community if it no longer plans to pursue the Drayton South project. The company’s Drayton mine is due to close in 2015, but the company has applied for state

Outotec has been awarded another concentrator contract with Russian Copper Co. for the Miheevsky project with throughput of 18 million tonnes of ore a year. Finnish headquartered metallurgical specialist Outotec has signed a contract with ZAO Miheevsky Image from Outotec shows Kittilä gold mine, Finland.

The price of importing South African coal has fallen to be nearly on par with Chinese domestic rates, but Chinese buyers are not biting and are asking for discounts of another $4 per tonne at least, trade sources said.

The board of Polyus Gold , Russia's biggest gold producer, approved on Tuesday its development strategy, which, once implemented, will see it become one of the world's top five gold miners in 2020.

Copper hit its highest since mid-April on Tuesday as a weaker dollar and hopes Chinese demand will remain firm helped offset investor anxiety over US and European sovereign debt concerns. Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange (LME) traded at $9,800.25 a tonne by 0825 GMT compared with Monday's close of $9,694 a tonne.

Diamond producer Petra Diamonds on Tuesday reported a 24% increase in gross mine revenue to US$220.6 million for the year ended June 2011, mainly due to the steady increase in rough diamond prices from October 2010. Revenue of US$90.0 million in the

Prime Minister Julia Gillard is reassuring NSW coalminers her carbon tax will not stop their sons from following in their footsteps. Ms Gillard is spruiking her carbon price package in the NSW Hunter Valley today. Image is from MystifyMe Concert Photography (Troy).

Coal Services today announced a reduction of 2.78% to workers’ compensation premium rates for the New South Wales coal mining industry, with the target premium rate set at 3.5% (3.6% in 2010/11). This is the latest in a series of reductions that have seen premium rates fall from a high of 11.5% in 2002/03 to the current rate of 3.5%, equating to almost a 70% reduction over 8 years.