Ledsham said while visiting Zambia, Africa’s largest copper producer, that the Konkola North project, Vale’s joint-venture project with African Rainbow Minerals was the first of other projects Vale planned to develop in Africa.

“Our goal is to start implementation of the project in September this year and begin production by 2013. The capital required is around $400-million which we will invest in two and half years,” Ledsham said during a business meeting in Lusaka.

“We (will be) starting with 50 000 t of copper per year before going to 100 000 t in the second phase when we expand the mine by 2015,” Ledsham said

Ledsham said the Konkola North underground mine would employ about 1 500 people once its development started.

He said Vale was also involved in exploration works and planned to invest in Nickel mining in Zambia after completing the copper mine.

Diversified South African miner African Rainbow said in May that it planned to divest from a gold project in Namibia by June and finalise the development of the Konkola copper project with Vale.

Copper mining is Zambia’s economic mainstay and the mines are a major employer in this southern African country of 12-million people.

Foreign mining companies in Zambia include London-listed Vedanta Resources, Canada’s First Quantum Minerals, Glencore International of Switzerland and Metorex of South Africa.

Barrick, the world’s largest gold miner, agreed in October to buy a 70 percent stake in El Morro — a copper and gold project — from its owner, Anglo-Swiss miner Xstrata (XTA.L), for $465 million.

But that bid was scuttled when New Gold, the minority stakeholder in El Morro, claimed right of first refusal on Xstrata’s stake and structured a deal to sell it to Goldcorp. Barrick said in mid-January it would sue Goldcorp and New Gold, claiming the deal was structured improperly.

In a statement on Tuesday, Goldcorp said it had completed the transaction, but Barrick spokesman Vince Borg said Barrick still expects to see New Gold and Goldcorp in court.

“Fundamentally, we remain of the view that Xstrata were obliged to close with us,” he said. “Whether they closed or not, the courts will sort out.”

Barrick filed its claim in an Ontario court, even though its disagreement centers on an interpretation of Chilean law.

Toronto-based Barrick alleges New Gold and Goldcorp acted improperly when New Gold essentially transferred its right of first refusal on the stake to Goldcorp.

El Morro is an advanced stage project holding reserves of 5.7 billion pounds of copper and 6.7 million ounces of gold.

While it is more of a copper than a gold project, gold miners are increasingly embracing projects with a high proportion of base metals due to a scarcity of large pure gold projects.

Barrick hopes to realize costs savings due to El Morro’s proximity to other operations it has in the area, including its Pascua Lama project.

Vancouver-based Goldcorp, the world’s No. 2 gold miner by market value, hopes to establish a presence in Chile.

A court date has not yet been set.

Barrick shares were up 62 Canadian cents at C$39.65 on the Toronto Stock Exchange in late trade on Wednesday, while Goldcorp was up 40 Canadian cents at C$40.48. Vancouver-based New Gold was up 9 Canadian cents at C$5.08.

Investors appeared to react to the news, with shares in the company spiking 18c, or 5.3%, to $3.60.

The results continue to reinforce the thickness and quality of the three high-grade VMS copper-gold lenses delineated at the DeGrussa Project – namely the DeGrussa, Conductor 1 and Conductor 4 lenses.

The most significant results from Conductor 1 lens includes 31.4m @ 4.6% Cu, 2.1g/t Au (DGDD-076), 26.0m @ 3.8% Cu, 1.4g/t Au (DGDD-079), 25.9m @ 4.7% Cu, 2.2g/t Au (DGDD-075), 23.7m @ 5.4% Cu, 1.9g/t Au (DGDD-073) and 21.9m @ 6.3% Cu, 0.9g/t Au (DGDD-077).

Another high-grade intersection from DeGrussa lens was 2.1m @ 17.8% Cu, 7.5g/t Au (DGDD-069).

The drilling was completed on a 40m by 40m surface drill-hole pattern, with the results forming the basis of the initial JORC compliant resource estimate which will encompass the DeGrussa and Conductor 1 lenses.

Further drilling is required to complete a JORC compliant resource estimate for Conductor 4.

The resource estimate, which will also be independently checked by McDonald Speijers, is on track to be completed and announced to the market during February 2010. This resource estimate will represent a key milestone for the Project, providing a strong foundation to progress the DeGrussa Project to a Scoping Study in 2010.

In addition, further significant mineralised intercepts continue to be recorded from the DeGrussa, Conductor 1 and Conductor 4 lenses.

In addition, Sandfire will commence regional diamond drill testing to progressively test a series of VTEM targets within the host sequence of the Narracoota Volcanics identified from the regional airborne EM surveys over Sandfire’s tenement holdings at Doolgunna. The objective of Sandfire’s regional program is to test the potential for the Doolgunna Project to emerge as a new VMS Camp with multiple deposits.

Sandfire has also appointed senior Australian mining executive Mr Martin Reed to the newly created position of Project Manager, to lead the development of the DeGrussa Project.

Mr Reed is a qualified Mining Engineer with over 30 years experience across a range of commodities and sizes of operations including most recently as Chief Operating Officer for a number of metals companies including St Barbara and Windimurra Vanadium.

The Company has also strengthened its corporate team with the appointment of highly experienced resource executive Matthew Fitzgerald as Chief Financial Officer. Mr Fitzgerald is a Chartered Accountant who commenced his career in the Assurance and Advisory division of KPMG before joining ASX-listed diamond producer Kimberley Diamond Company NL in 2003 as Chief Financial Officer and Director, a position he held until June 2008.

Mr Fitzgerald has recently held a number of business consulting roles in the resources and aquaculture industries, assisting companies in project development.

Lu Youqing, vice-president of Aluminium Corp of China (Chinalco), said that the state-owned group was studying worldwide copper resources to identify the best investment opportunities.

“Copper is our next main development target,” Mr Lu said in an interview with Reuters, citing Toronto-listed Ivanhoe Mines’ copper-gold project in Mongolia as a potential target. Mr Lu declined to comment on the amount of money that Chinalco has earmarked to make such purchases, however, he said the company is yet to enter talks with any potential sellers.

Copper prices have surged by 130pc since the start of 2009, with the aluminium price up a more modest 44pc, The positive outlook for copper prices prompted Chinalco to establish a subsidiary last year, China Copper Company. The unit now has about 60bn yuan of assets, but there are no imminent plans to list the business separately, Mr Liu said.

In June last year, Rio Tinto spurned Chinalco’s proposed $19.5bn cash injection, which would have doubled the Chinese group’s stake in the miner to 18pc. Instead, Rio undertook a deeply-discounted rights issue and put its Australian iron ore assets into a joint venture with BHP Billiton. Yesterday, the European Union launched an antitrust probe into the proposed iron ore venture, which had been widely expected.

Chinalco currently owns 9pc of Rio Tinto and Mr Lu also denied the recent rumour that the company was about to sell its stake to China Investment Corp, China’s sovereign wealth fund.

Chinese companies spent more than $30bn buying foreign mines and oil deposits last year, as asset prices tumbled. Analysts are generally downbeat on prospects for the aluminium price, but more bullish on copper.

Chinalco also said yesterday that it had posted a profit in the second half of the year, compared with a loss in the first half of 2009. No profit figure was revealed, but the company’s full-year sales rose 10pc to 142bn yuan. In December, capacity utilisation at its aluminium operations exceeded 90pc, with production costs falling 17pc over the year.

The two companies are partners in the Tethyan Copper Co (TCC) joint venture, which has a 75% interest in the Reko Diq project in the southwestern province of Baluchistan and hold the exploration license for the site. The provincial government holds the remaining 25%.

The cancellation of the license — apparently meant to ease anger in Pakistan’s poorest province over outsider exploitation of its natural resources — would further damage Pakistan’s image as a destination for foreign investment and would throw a wrench into the plans of the mining companies.

“The cabinet has said they wanted to cancel the exploration license but it has not been finalised,” Mushtaq Ahmed, secretary for the provincial mining ministry, told Reuters.

He said there was a chance the deal would not be canceled, and that the situation should be clarified in coming days.

The deposit holds more than 11 billion pounds of copper and 9 million ounces of gold.

A Tethyan official said the company had not been officially informed of any decision by the provincial government to cancel the deal, although that was the company’s interpretation of developments.

Shares of both Barrick and Antofagasta, which had planned to have a feasibility study done on Reko Diq by mid-2010, were down slightly.

“TCC is looking into the current situation and seeking clarification to satisfactorily resolve (it),” said Vince Borg, spokesman for Barrick, which is the world’s top gold producer.

Barrick stock was down 2.6%, or C$1.10, at C$41.90 on the Toronto Stock Exchange, while London-listed Antofagasta fell 1.9 percent to 1003 pence.

LOW-LEVEL INSURGENCY

Separatist guerrillas in Baluchistan have been fighting a low-level insurgency for decades for control of the province’s gas and mineral resources, which they say are unfairly exploited by the country’s richer and more powerful provinces.

The provincial government recently said the cancellation of the Reko Diq agreement would be a “step towards getting control of the provincial resources in accordance with the wishes of the people.”

Many investors are hesitant to invest in Pakistan because of security worries as the country battles a Taliban insurgency in the northwest. There has been a wave of suicide attacks over the past couple of years, some targeting foreigners.

Net foreign investment in Pakistan fell 25.6 percent to $1.08 billion in the first five months of the 2009-10 (July-June) fiscal year from $1.45 billion in the same period a year earlier, the central bank said last month.

Zijin has already agreed to buy a 19,99% stake in Indophil from Swiss-based miner Xstrata.

Indophil owns a 34,23% stake in the $5,2-billion Tampakan copper and gold project in southern Philippines, controlled by Xstrata.

The Tampakan project has an Australasian joint ore reserves committee (JORC) compliant mineral resource estimate of 2,4-billion tons containing 13,5-million tons of copper and 15,8-million ounces of gold at a 0,3% copper cut-off grade.

The project is in the final feasibility study phase, which is due for completion in the second quarter of 2010. First production is scheduled for early in 2016.

Zijin is offering A$1,28 a share. The offer period for Indophil shares would start on January 18 and would close on March 19.

Goldcorp will advance New Gold $463 million to allow New Gold to acquire a 70% interest of the project from Xstrata Plc, the Vancouver-based companies said today in separate statements. Goldcorp will then pay an additional $50 million to acquire the stake from New Gold, which already has 30 percent control of the copper and gold project and right of first refusal on purchasing the mine.

The agreement follows a bid from Barrick, the world’s largest producer of the metal by market value, which said in October it would pay Zug, Switzerland-based Xstrata $465 million for the 70 percent stake.

El Morro “gives Goldcorp an avenue for growth after they finish Penasquito and Pueblo Viejo,” Haytham Hodaly, a Vancouver-based mining analyst at Salman Partners Inc., said today in a telephone interview. “It’s a large-scale project, which can’t be ignored.”

Gold producers are trying to increase their reserves to benefit from demand that drove the precious metal’s price up 24 percent last year. Goldcorp’s agreement with New Gold follows a bidding competition with a Newmont Mining Corp. venture over Canplats Resources Corp., which owns a gold project in Mexico.

Goldcorp Shares

Goldcorp fell 17 cents to C$43.21 at 4:16 p.m. in Toronto Stock Exchange trading. New Gold rose 53 cents, or 13 percent, to C$4.55. Barrick, based in Toronto, declined 54 cents, or 1.3 percent, to C$42.64.

“In El Morro, Goldcorp has identified an ideal project with which to re-enter one of the best mining jurisdictions in South America,” Goldcorp Chief Executive Officer Chuck Jeannes said in a statement. “Our strong balance sheet provides the freedom to begin advancing El Morro toward commercial production immediately upon the closing of this transaction.”

El Morro contains 6.7 million ounces of gold and 5.7 billion pounds of copper reserves, New Gold said in its statement.

Goldcorp, which began producing concentrates at the Penasquito mine in Mexico last year, increased its Mexican gold output forecast from 575,000 ounces in 2009 to 650,000 this year, Salvador Garcia, Goldcorp’s chief for the country, said in November.

Goldcorp is partnering with Barrick on the Pueblo Viejo mine in the Dominican Republic, which is on schedule to begin producing in 2011, Barrick Chief Executive Officer Aaron Regent said in September

Following the announcement, shares in Sandfire increased 3.2% to $3.56.

The outstanding results from the latest batch of drilling included 39.5m @ 7.8% Cu, 3.0g/t Au (DGDD-064), 33.7m @ 7.0% Cu, 1.3g/t Au (DGDD-049) and 15.6m @ 4.0% Cu, 2.2g/t Au (DGDD-053).

Assay results have been received for a further nine in-fill diamond drill holes, most of which targeted the near-surface thinner northern portions of the Conductor 1 deposit, while a large number of thick mineralised intercepts continue to be recorded at depth within the central and southern portions of the deposit.

The thinner intersections generally define the up-plunge, near surface portions of the Conductor 1 deposit. This and the large number of thick mineralised intercepts which continue to be recorded from drilling are consistent with Sandfire’s geological model for the Conductor 1 and DeGrussa Deposits.

In addition, assay results have been received from hole DGDD-043, which intersected 4.4m grading 4.2% Cu, 2.7g/t Au, 0.8% Zn and 15.0g/t Ag from a downhole depth of 632.6m on the eastern flank of the Conductor 4 deposit.

This result supports the previously announced results from Conductor 4, which is located immediately adjacent to the DeGrussa and Conductor 1 deposits (17.7m grading 5.4% copper and 1.9g/t gold, 1.2% Zn and 12.9g/t Ag in hole DGDD-035 and 5.1m @ 15.0% copper, 3.7g/t gold from 670.9m in hole DGDD-016).

In-fill diamond drilling has now largely been completed on a 40m by 40m surface drill-hole pattern covering the DeGrussa and Conductor 1 deposits. A total of 88 diamond drill holes have been completed since early July 2009, with the diamond drill rigs stood down for the Christmas and New Year break.

This drilling has generated sufficient data to support Sandfire’s objective of generating an initial JORC compliant Mineral Resource estimate for the DeGrussa and Conductor 1 deposits during the first Quarter of 2010.

Diamond drilling will recommence at Doolgunna on 4 January.

The Company has the advanced zinc-lead-silver-gold Paguanta Project in northern Chile.  An initial drilling program in 2006 confirmed a significant mineralised zone. Following a second drilling campaign in mid-2007, Herencia announced an Inferred Mineral Resource of 2.5Mt at 4.1%Zn, 1.3%Pb and 77g/t Ag (2% Zn cut-off). In 2008 the Company undertook an additional 10,000m of drilling and followed up with a Scoping Study which was completed in December 2008.

Herencia aims to progress Paguanta toward development in the near term.  A diamond drill program is scheduled to commence in early 2010 and subject to the results from that drilling it is planned to move the project into a Feasibility Study phase in 2H2010

Michael Bohm, MD of Herencia Resources, talks about developing a low risk zinc-silver-lead-gold project, a JORC compliant resource that outcrops at surface and is open along strike and down dip, a potential gold-copper story at depth, and obtaining mining title over all project tenements at Paguanta in Chile.

Talisman acquired a 100% interest in the Halloween copper/gold project from private prospectors Max Pedri and Keith Scudds for a combination of cash, shares and a future net smelter production royalty.

The acquisition complemented Talisman’s Springfield project, where the company said it had generated “promising results” from programmes of surface geochemical sampling. These included two priority copper/gold prospects, the Homer prospect and Abraham prospect, respectively located about 5 km along strike to the east and 9,5 km south of DeGrussa.

“The acquisition of the Halloween project provides Talisman with another quality project within the Bryah Basin prospective for volcanogenic massive sulfide-style deposits,” said Talisman’s MD Gary Lethridge.

“We are looking forward to starting initial exploration activities at Halloween, including reconnaissance mapping and soil sampling, in the first quarter of 2010 in parallel with the start of ground-based exploration at Springfield, where we recently secured the grant of our two key tenements,”

Talisman acquired a 100% interest in the Halloween copper/gold project from private prospectors Max Pedri and Keith Scudds for a combination of cash, shares and a future net smelter production royalty.

The acquisition complemented Talisman’s Springfield project, where the company said it had generated “promising results” from programmes of surface geochemical sampling. These included two priority copper/gold prospects, the Homer prospect and Abraham prospect, respectively located about 5 km along strike to the east and 9,5 km south of DeGrussa.

“The acquisition of the Halloween project provides Talisman with another quality project within the Bryah Basin prospective for volcanogenic massive sulfide-style deposits,” said Talisman’s MD Gary Lethridge.

“We are looking forward to starting initial exploration activities at Halloween, including reconnaissance mapping and soil sampling, in the first quarter of 2010 in parallel with the start of ground-based exploration at Springfield, where we recently secured the grant of our two key tenements,

Taking in the Merlin deposit and another project in the same region there was now a collective minerals resource of almost 140 Mt.

The company said heap leach studies for an SX-EW operation were nearing completion.

Chief executive, Peter Reeve, said the deeper sulphide polymetallic resource at Mt Dore remains open and that the established resource contains both secondary and primary mineralisation.

The secondary mineralisation, which is amenable to heap leaching, was now 53 Mt grading 0.65% Cu.

“We will now work hard to establish the parameters for a second development project on the Mount Dore system with a copper heap leach, SX-EW project following our success with the preliminary definition of the Merlin molybdenum and rhenium project,” Reeve said.

The estimate of Mount Dore’s total contained metal in both the copper and polymetallic targets was 610,000 tonnes of contained copper (1,340 M lb); 240,000t zinc, 360,000 oz gold and 21 M oz silver.

Of this the Mt Dore heap leach project would have a total contained metal inventory of about 340,000t of copper.

In 2008 Ivanhoe Australia started a series of studies into the potential to recover copper from the copper oxides and transitional sulphides by open pit mining and conventional heap leach, SX/EW methods.

With the focus on the Merlin project these studies were deferred pending completion of the column leach testwork.

Reeve said the quality of the engineering studies for the proposed leach pad designs, crushing and stacking systems, electrowinning and solvent extraction plants are of a high standard and are not expected to require significant modification between the scoping study and feasibility study design.

The supply of acid for the project is a critical item with two options being investigated — a sulphur burning acid plant on site, and transportation of liquid sulphuric acid to site.

The Mt Dore mineralisation now stretches for over 2.5 kilometres along strike and continues north over the top of the Merlin mineralisation and down dip to the east.

Ivanhoe Australia, which is 83% owned by Ivanhoe Mines, said that at another north west Queensland project – Swan-Mount Elliott work was continuing on upgrading the Swan high grade zone.

The initial mineral resource at an 0.25% Cu cut-off, was 475 Mt @ 0.5% Cu and 0.3 g/t gold – an in ground resource of 3 Mt of cupper and 5 M oz gold. This takes in a near-surface oxide resource of 16 Mt @ 0.6% Cu and 0.35 g/t gold.

Meanwhile, the scoping studies on Merlin were expected to be completed by early 2010.

At the close of trading on the ASX today Ivanhoe was static at $A3.99

That timetable — which envisions an early start to development and commercial production by 2013 — would seem a bit more accelerated than what Ivanhoe predicted in October, when company officials eyed output by late 2013.

Rio Tinto (RIO.L) (RIO.AX) is a minority stakeholder and funding partner in the project.

“Ivanhoe is clearly undertaking an aggressive development program on the Oyu Tolgoi project,” BMO Capital Markets analyst John Hayes said in a research note.

Ivanhoe, Rio and Mongolia wrapped up a long-awaited investment agreement on Oyu Tolgoi in October, giving the Mongolian government a 34-percent stake in the project.

Oyu Tolgoi is seen as one of the world’s largest untapped copper and gold deposits, and lies in the Gobi Desert, about 80 km (50 miles) from the border with copper-hungry China.

The initial open-pit phase of the project is expected to cost $3.5 billion, while the partners will concurrently spend $1 billion to begin to develop an underground component to the mine.

TO BUILD AIRPORT

In a statement, Ivanhoe said the 2010 budget provides for an early start on a site-wide development program, pending the successful completion of remaining conditions required to put the investment agreement in effect.

Those conditions include review of a feasibility study, which Ivanhoe expects to be concluded in coming weeks.

“This is basically to kick-start the project from the point of view of infrastructure,” Ivanhoe Chief Executive John Macken said at a mining conference on Monday.

Work in 2010 is expected to include construction of a 97-metre (320 foot) concrete headframe and a regional airport capable of accommodating Boeing 737-sized aircraft.

The company, which has a cash position of about $1 billion, has said the mine should produce an average of more than 1 billion pounds of copper and 500,000 ounces of gold annually over the first 10 years of its 30-plus years of life.

Ivanhoe recently received $388 million from Rio Tinto, completing the second phase a private placement financing deal.

Under the financing agreement between the two companies, Rio has the right to buy 43.1 percent of Ivanhoe’s common shares over the next two years. It may increase this stake to 46.6 percent through purchases on the open market.

Rio currently owns a 19.7 percent stake in Ivanhoe.

Shares of Ivanhoe were up 42 Canadian cents at C$12.97 on the Toronto Stock Exchange on Monday afternoon.

The schedule includes three diamond holes on the Just Desserts prospects as well as an equally deep hole on the C Zone target at Yuinmery, backed by a selection of RC drill targets and precollaring work.

The work is the first major drill campaign on Yuinmery since the Company announced a JORC compliant Indicated resource estimate of 1,070,000 tonnes grading 1.82% copper and 0.78 g/t gold from shallow drilling of the project’s Just Desserts prospect – a volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) copper-gold style of mineralization.

Empire’s Managing Director David Sargeant said the potential to readily upgrade Yuinmery’s potential was significant as the mineralisation remained open at depth and along strike.

Shares in the company were 4.7% higher to 8.9c in the afternoon trade.