Mining and Exploration

Oil and gas exploration company Premier Oil has raised its interest in the UK onshore oilfield Wytch Farm by 17 per cent.

Premier will pay current operator BP $96 million for the additional interest, which will take its total stake up to approximately 30 per cent.

Wytch Farm is currently producing approximately 13,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. Located in Dorset around 17 miles from Poole, the oilfield comprises three separate oil reservoirs that lie under Poole Harbour and Poole Bay.

International mining group Rio Tinto has now acquired 99.74 per cent of the shares of Riversdale Mining Limited after Tata Steel today allowed its 26.28 per cent stake into Rio Tinto's takeover offer.

Riversdale has hard coking-coal projects in Mozambique and also owns an underground coal mine in South Africa—Zululand Anthracite Colliery. Mozambique is strategically well placed to supply hard coking coal to India and Brazil, where the steel industry is growing and a number of new coal-fired power stations are being built.

Arch Coal today announced the completion of its acquisition of International Coal Group Inc, for $3.4 billion.

Prior to the merger, Arch had acquired approximately 92 percent of ICG's outstanding shares of common stock in connection with its previously disclosed tender offer. ICG has now become a wholly owned subsidiary of Arch.

"We are pleased with the swift and successful completion of the ICG transaction, which will add tremendous value for Arch's stakeholders in the coming years," said Steven F. Leer, Arch's chairman and chief executive officer.

Copper producer Kazakhmys has announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding with the China Development Bank for a $1.5 billion loan.

The money will be used to develop the company’s major copper project at Aktogay in Kazakhstan.

Gold mining company Pan African Resources has reported “encouraging” results from its drilling programme at a tailings dam at Barberton Mines in South Africa.

The drilling, on the Bramber tailings dam, revealed a resource of 148,000oz at a grade of 1.47g per ton in situ—a relatively high grade for a tailings dam.

A major investment in IAMGOLD’s Westwood Project in northern Quebec will also benefit from facilities left behind by neighboring mines in the area.

IAMGOLD is a mid-tier gold mining company producing around one million ounces annually from eight mines on three continents. With a rich pipeline of development and exploration projects, IAMGOLD employs roughly 5,000 workers in West Africa, parts of South America, and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec, where it also operates a niobium mine.

The location of Detour Gold Corporation’s Detour Lake project makes it an excellent candidate for relatively inexpensive development, which is coming to fruition at an impressive pace.

The Aurcana Corporation operates the La Negra mine in Mexico and is developing and constructing the Shafter Mine in Texas, which will quadruple the company’s silver output and raise it from junior to mid-tier status. The road to success will face challenges, though, as Gay Sutton hears from VP Operations Andy Nichols.

Mid-tier Canadian mining company Taseko Mines Limited has submitted a revised project description to the Federal Government in pursuit of final approval of its New Prosperity gold-copper project.

The New Prosperity project addresses the concerns identified during the original federal review process while building on the core strengths and benefits of the original Prosperity proposal.

Canadian resource company Copper Mountain Mining Corporation announced today that construction of its processing plant is now complete and production has commenced.

Mining has been proceeding as planned and has been delivering ore to the primary crusher since mid April. The company has been stock piling ore as part of preproduction mining activities.