Toyota to make cheaper electric motors by halving use of rare earths

London-listed Churchill Mining Plc is threatening Indonesia to seek international arbitration, saying that the company was unlawfully deprived of a US$1.8 billion coal discovery in the jungles of Borneo Island. The East Kutai project is a huge resource with a JORC compliant estimate of 2.7 billion tonnes of coal, acquired by Churchill in 2007 through an acquisition of a 75% stake in Indonesian group Ridlatama.

A group of Indian companies and Canada's Kilo Goldmines Ltd. (CVE:KGL) have been awarded the contract to mine the Hajigak iron ore deposit in Afghanistan. MINING.com reported Nov. 19 that Indian firms were leading the chase for the huge iron ore property, which is being touted by the Afghans as the world’s largest iron ore deposit at 1.8 billion tonnes. The deposit extends over 32 kilometres and covers 16 separate zones. Bloomberg reports that President Hamid Karzai and his government awarded three of the four Hajigak blocks to seven Indian companies, led by state-owned Steel Authority of India Ltd. and NMDC Ltd., that were bidding with support from the Indian government. The fourth block was awarded to Kilo Goldmines, which is described on its website as a gold exploration and development company that is actively drilling several past-producing mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Members of a Filipino tribe are protesting after the country’s second richest businessman agreed to enter a nickel joint mining venture with a Chinese concern on the island of Palawan. Palawan was in the news recently when the Puerto Princesa subterranean river on the island was chosen as one of the world’s new seven wonders of nature, according to organizers of a global poll conducted via social media. The Philippine government vigorously campaigned for the 8.2 kilometer navigable underground river in a bid to boost tourism. South Korea’s Jeju Island, Indonesia’s Komodo and South Africa’s Table Mountain were also among the list.

A BBC poll enquiring about the public's appetite for nuclear power has delivered some surprising results. The poll by GlobeScan, commissioned for the BBC, asked 23,231 people in 23 countries with nuclear programs their opinions on nuclear power. It found that most are significantly more opposed to nuclear power than they were in 2005, with just 22% agreeing that "nuclear power is relatively safe and an important source of electricity, and we should build more nuclear power plants."

Vancouver-based junior Prophecy Coal (TSE:PCY), which moved to the TSX main board last month, has landed a major deal to build a coal-fired power plant in Mongolia. The company said yesterday its subsidiary, Eat Energy Development LLC, has received a licence from the Mongolian Energy Regulatory Authority to construct the 600-MW Chandgana power plant. It is the first thermal power plant licence to be issued by the Mongolian government. Coal for the Chandgana mine-mouth power plant will be supplied from Prophecy’s Chandgana Tal ("Tal") Deposit, for which the company has already obtained a mining licence. Tal contains 141 million tonnes of measured coal and is located 9 km north of Prophecy’s Chandgana Khavtgai project, a deposit with over 1 billion tonnes of measured and indicated coal, Prophecy states.

The arrival of four tiger cubs in Tadoba – one of the country's oldest national parks – has brought cheers to wildlife lovers. However, rampant coal mining in Chandrapur and its surrounding areas pose a grave threat to tiger conservation and protection reports Hindustan Times. The Indian government has allotted more than six new coal mines in the periphery of Tadoba tiger reserve where already half a dozen coal mines are operating. Tadoba tiger reserve was in the news recently for better big cat conservation and birth of 32 tiger cubs in the area since January 2010. India's tiger population has dwindled from tens of thousands a century ago to a mere 1,411 according to the last census conducted in 2008.

The Business Standard reports a senior official from India's state department of fertilizers says so far the country's effort to secure potash imports at a better price by aiding Indian companies to acquire assets abroad has not made any breakthrough. The global potash market is controlled by about 10 mainly Canadian companies and a couple of Russian producers. With no local producers, India imports more than 6 million tonnes of muriate of potash a year for its 50 million small-scale farmers. Current pricing is around the $500/tonne level and Scotiabank recently said demand is weakening and after two years of steady price hikes 2012 will see no growth.

Due to euro jitters and the U.S. credit downgrade, investment demand in Europe for gold jumped 135% to a record quarterly value of €4.6 billion. On Thursday the World Gold Council’s Gold Demand Trends report for Q3 2011 was released. "The increase in overall investment demand was all the more impressive given the sharp gold price correction in September, which encouraged a wave of profit taking among bar and coin investors. Virtually all markets saw strong double-digit growth in demand for gold bars and coins," said the World Gold Council in a statement.

International Business Times reports that the Afghan mining ministry is leaning heavily towards two state-owned Indian mining firms to develop the country's massive Hajigak iron ore mine: "Afghanistan's minister of mines Wahidullah Shahrani said Steel Authority of  India  Ltd. (SAIL) and mineral giant NMDC Ltd. were leading the pack of overseas companies from Canada, US and Iran. A third Indian company, Ispat Alloys, was also included in the shortlist."
The article says a SAIL-led consortium has bid for all four Hajigak iron ore blocks, and that the Karzai-led government is giving preference to companies that could set up a steel plant. The contract is estimated to be worth some $6 billion.