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Today, House Committee on Natural Resources Chairman Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) and Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Chairman Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) led a letter to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler and Director Haoxiang Zhu, seeking information on a proposed rule change to permit the listing of Natural Asset Companies (NACs) on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

MOSCOW (Mineweb.com) -- It is almost forty years since those fine falsettos, the Bee Gees, put their pop classic, “Massachusetts”, on the top of the charts. They had no idea that their lyrics might become the alleged plot of a scheme by a trio of Ukrainian metal men to steal hundreds of millions of dollars in proceeds from the processing of manganese ore, and the sale of ferromanganese, ferrosilicon, and silicomanganese to steelmakers around the world. “And the lights all went out in Massachusetts,” sang Robin and Barry Gibb. “They brought me back to see my way with you.” On...

An investment firm that counts Hunter Biden among its founders helped a Chinese company purchase one of the world’s most lucrative cobalt mines from an American company, according to a report by The New York Times. Biden established the firm Bohai Harvest RST (BHR) Equity Investment Fund Management Company with two other Americans and some Chinese partners in 2013. The American members controlled 30 percent of the Shanghai-based operation and served on the board. The company notably completed a deal in 2016 that saw a Congo cobalt and copper mine transfer from American company Freeport-McMoRan to Chinese outfit China Molybdenum...

Saddam's Shadow Africa Energy & Mining June 18, 1997 Copyright 1997 Indigo Publications Africa Energy & Mining June 18, 1997 SECTION: MINING; DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO; N. 207 LENGTH: 787 words HEADLINE: Saddam's Shadow BODY: It's not only diamonds and base metals that interest big mining companies and the latter are not alone in being interested in Katanga. In the delegation that the United States sent to Kinshasa on June 2 under its ambassador to the United Nations, Bill Richardson, the state department's African affairs department was represented by Marc Baas, director for Central Africa. (Susan Rice, director for African...

Relying on foreign allies for critical minerals supply instead of mining domestically would be an “irresponsible” and “dangerous” policy for the Biden administration to pursue, a top lithium executive says. Calaway was responding to a report that said the Biden administration, in a move to appease environmentalists, would focus on building a domestic industry to process critical minerals rather than exploring opportunities to mine in the U.S. Those technologies are more mineral-intensive. The International Energy Agency recently projected the world’s appetite for critical minerals could grow by as much as six times in the next two decades. A typical electric...

Driving along the Great Northern Highway through Western Australia's remote Pilbara region at sunrise is a unique experience. A landscape of gold, red and green surrounds you, the sky glows with a pink hue and the air is crisp. Underneath all that natural beauty lies the single most valuable thing to Australia — iron ore. Rio Tinto's iron ore trains stretch up to 2.4 kilometres and carry as much as 28,000 tonnes of iron ore in a single trip.(ABC News: Rachel Pupazzoni) The commodity helped shave $50 billion off the recently revealed budget deficit, it's what Western Australian Premier Mark...

MP Materials, which runs the sole operating rare earths mine in the United States, is an unusual victim in the year-long tit-for-tat trade war between the two largest economies on the planet, as the conflict looks set to open up a new battlefront over technology. The operator of the Mountain Pass mine in California said it will kick-start its own processing operation by the end of 2020, after China last week more than doubled an import duty on concentrates to 25 per cent effective June 1. MP exports pellets – ground-up ores that contain oxides of rare earth elements –...

"We called the White House and they acted swiftly on the Friday event, which has since been postponed," said a staff member for Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who complained that the event would have openly undermined President Donald Trump’s agenda on Cuba."The event in question has been postponed," a State Department official confirmed."This (event) was designed to embarrass the president and Pompeo—somebody needs to be held to account," one source said. "The fact that State Department officials were advancing a program that is so slanted and completely at odds with the president's directive on Cuba, I am concerned what...

Democrat super-lobbyist Tony Podesta was paid $170,000 over a six-month period last year to represent Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank, seeking to end one of the Obama administration’s economic sanctions against that country, The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group has learned. Podesta, founder and chairman of the Podesta Group, is listed as a key lobbyist on behalf of Sberbank, according to Senate lobbying disclosure forms. His firm received more than $24 million in fees in 2016, much of it coming from foreign governments, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

As recently as 1990, the United States was the world’s largest producer of minerals—a collection of nonfuel resources that are the building blocks of today’s technologies. In the ensuing decades, quite a different trend has emerged. Of 88 mineral commodities tracked by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the United States is more than 25 percent import-dependent for 62 of them. That trend is growing worse. In its annual Mineral Commodity Summary, USGS notes: Several U.S. metal mines and processing facilities were idled or closed permanently in 2016, including iron ore mines in Michigan and Minnesota; three primary aluminum smelters in...

After 109 years in business, the Great Northern Iron Ore Properties Trust officially terminated Monday and its stock stopped trading on the New York Stock Exchange. The moment provided a reminder of a distant era in Minnesota history, shaped by railroad barons and trust-busting reformers, by the great riches of the Mesabi Range and the hard realities of the industrial age. "So many of Hill's decisions cast such a long shadow," said Craig Johnson, manager of the James J. Hill House historic site in St. Paul. "It reminds us that he's still that big looming presence in the business and...

Four tonnes of gold ore were allegedly stolen by a 46 member gang from a small scale gold mine in Zimbabwe in two separate raids, state media reported on Wednesday. The robbers allegedly beat up workers with iron bars and clubs. One of the workers lost two fingers during one of the raids at the mine at Chev Chess Farm near Kadoma, a town about 140 kilometres south west of the capital Harare. According to the Herald newspaper, the first group of 19 armed men went to the mine on June 8 at night driving pickup trucks. "They were armed...

This Friday will mark the release of the May unemployment report. A report that will reflect the last effects of the Obama trillion-dollar stimulus and of the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing (QE2). The report is likely to show that job creation is mediocre at best, with unemployment insurance claims continuing well above the 400,000 weekly level, housing in a double-dip recession and the gross domestic product contracting to a paltry 1.8 percent growth rate for the second quarter of 2011. The situation is so dire on the economic growth front that The New York Times has awoken from its slumber...

Investigators, neighbors, friends and family of 14-year-old Justin Butler are trying to make sense of the tragic events which took his life. Adding another layer of heartbreak for his family, Monday night, Crook County Sheriff deputies arrested Justin's cousin, 21-year-old Brandon Hornseth. "Everybody's in shock, you know and he's such a young man, I mean these things happen in town, they don't happen out here," says Meloni Platt, who lives down the road from the Butler Ranch. Justin was found dead in an RV early Sunday morning, with a gunshot wound to the head. He was on an elk hunt...

Iron ore imports 50M tonnes over demand BEIJING: China's iron ore imports have exceeded actual demand by about 50 million tonnes so far this year and the oversupply leaves no room for further price rises, a senior official of the China Iron and Steel Association (CISA) said on Monday. "We believe the Chinese iron ore price is largely influenced by speculation on the market," CISA's Vice Chairman Luo Bingsheng told reporters at the sideline of an industry conference in Beijing. China imported 405 million tonnes of iron ore in the first eight months of this year, up 32 percent from...

Business is being reshaped around the world. China was miffed by the outcome of what we last year called the corporate "deal of the century." But shareholder interests prevailed. How often will that be said in the future? Politics, that ugly dynamic when mixed with business, was already back in play last week as Rio Tinto, an Australian mining giant at the heart of the controversy, saw four of its Chinese executives arrested in Shanghai on spying charges. China says the busts are not retribution for the cancelled deal between Rio and a state-owned company, which received angry press in...

PLEASE SAY A PRAYER AND FORWARD THIS. The Department of Defense announced today the death of four soldiers who were supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. They died from wounds suffered when two OH-58D Kiowa Warrior helicopters crashed Jan. 26 in Kirkuk, Iraq. They were assigned to the 6th Squadron, 6th Cavalry Regiment, 10th Combat Aviation Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, Fort Drum, N.Y. Killed were: Chief Warrant Officer Philip E. Windorski, Jr., 35, of Bovey, Minn. Chief Warrant Officer Matthew G. Kelley, 30, of Cameron, Mo. Chief Warrant Officer Joshua M. Tillery, 31, of Beaverton, Ore. Chief Warrant Officer Benjamin H. Todd,...

A senior official with the International Monetary Fund expressed concern over the Democratic Republic of Congo's levels of debt to China, in a report released Wednesday after a 18-day visit here.

Lol, sorry, can't resist posting this one. Check out the link: http://www.amazon.com/Uranium-Ore/dp/B000796XXM

University of Arizona Mon 19-Feb-2007, 17:00 ET The Mysterious Case of Columbus's Silver Ore Libraries What was thought to be the first evidence of successful prospecting for precious metals in the New World turns out to be something completely different. Silver-bearing ore found at the settlement founded by Christopher Columbus's second expedition was not mined in the Americas. Copyright 1998. James Quine, Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida. Co-authors Kathleen Deagan and Jose M. Cruxent standing by the foundations of La Isabela's royal storehouse, where metallurgical activities took place. Newswise — Silver-bearing ore found at the settlement founded...