World Mining Exploration News

Early July 2009 the Company iron ore mines Australia Centrex Metals has signed a series of agreements between China’s Wuhan Iron & Steel (Wisco) to form a joint venture business exploration for Eyre Peninsula iron-ore project, in South Australia.

In the written agreement that, Wisco akan Centrex total pay up to A $ 186 million for 60% equity in the JV, with a minimum of A $ 78-million to pay for the iron ore mine is. Wisco akan more funds first single A $ 75-million commitment to the JV work, to cover the cost of exploration and development.

Wisco will have to invest in additional Centrex through share placement more than 40.3-million shares, the price of A $ 0.25 part, to further increase the A $ 10.09 million.

In a statement issued by Centrex, the company has to agree that the scope of the exploration phase and the study is to develop two of five million tons per year magnetite concentrate operation, for five to seven years. (more…)

As energy markets shrink, the same tactics that Russia used to build Gazprom into a fearsome economic and political power that could restore the country’s standing in the world are now backfiring, sharply eroding the energy giant’s earnings and influence.

Throughout his eight years as president of Russia, Vladimir V. Putin pursued the strategic goal of dominating natural gas supplies to Europe and the pipelines that deliver them. His success was underscored in January, when for the second time in three years a pricing dispute with Ukraine disrupted the flow of natural gas, leaving hundreds of thousands in Eastern Europe shivering in the deep winter cold.

But in his zeal to monopolize gas supplies, Mr. Putin, who is now the Russian prime minister, committed Gazprom to long-term contract with Central Asian countries for gas at a cost far in excess of current world prices. Now that the world economic crisis has sharply curtailed the demand for gas, Gazprom is saddled with a glut of expensive Central Asian supplies that it is forced to sell at a loss. (more…)