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Mine safety authorities in Western Australia are investigating the death of a 28-year-old worker who was fatally injured when the haul truck he was driving veered off the haul road at Rio Tinto’s Channar iron ore mine in the Pilbara region late Wednesday.
Operations at the mine have ceased for the investigation.

South African-focused platinum explorer Nkwe is set to become a 100% subsidiary of Zijin Mining Group after its independent directors agreed on a revised bid from its majority shareholder.
Zijin is now offering $A0.10 per share, up from its early $0.08 bid, and valuing the ASX-listed target at about $90M.
Nkwe’s independent directors say it offers the minority shareholders the certainty of a cash offer at a significant premium to its closing share price of $0.03 at March 19, when Zijin’s initial bid was announced.

Symbol Mining is preparing for first high-grade zinc-lead production from its 60%-owned Macy project in Nigeria’s Upper Benue Trough by end-Sept after finalising a logistics agreement with GMT Nigeria.
GMT, now Sub Saharan Africa's largest logistics service provider, will haul up to 180 containers a month over the 1,200km to Lagos port using a dedicated truck fleet.
Symbol says all major operational contracts are in place for the conventional openpit operation, being developed at a cost of $US3.2M and expected to produce 38,100t of shippable product over 12 months.

African Energy is seeking a South African equity partner for the Mmamabula West project, part of its Sese integrated coal mine and power project in eastern Botswana.
Increasing global power prices are opening up export opportunities for Mmamabula West’s indicated-inferred resource of 2.4Bt high-quality thermal coal, which AFR considers would be attractive for South African regional coal markets.
It comes as AFR and First Quantum, its Sese project majority partner, gained environmental approval to increase its capacity from 450MW to 500MW, allowing the use of more efficient generating units.

Copper-focused miner OZ Minerals posted attributable NPAT of $A127.8M for the June half-year, up from $80.6M in H1FY2017, on the back of revenue of $A530.3M ($445.9M).
Prominent Hill in South Australia lifted contained copper sales by 2% to 52,5798t while contained gold sales dipped 2% to 61,132oz in line with expectations. C1 costs were on guidance at $US85c/lb.
OZ says it will continue to prioritise the higher-margin copper production over gold, maintaining its FY2018 guidance at 100,000-110,000t Cu and 1209,000-130,000oz Au at $0.75-0.85/lb, within the lowest cost quartile globally.

Iluka Resources faces a potential $US180M cost blowout on planned expansion of the Lanti and Gangama dry mines and Sembehun development at its Sierra Rutile project.
A DFS is due in Dec, but Iluka says preliminary studies indicate the capital costs may be 40-60% higher than its prior $300M estimate. It’s now considering options to reduce capital costs and maximise returns.
Sierra Rutile has been a drag on Iluka’s June half-year performance, with MD Tom O’Leary pinpointing commissioning issues on the in-pit mining unit and failures of ageing equipment on the dredge.
However, strong market recoveries lifted Iluka’s H1 EBITDA by 80% to $A279M.

One of the world’s highest grade hard rock titanium‐vanadium deposits will be the focus of a new ASX float after Neometals announced plans to de-merge its 100%-owned Barrambie project in Western Australia.
The demerger, expected to be completed in the March 2019 qtr, will see the new company develop and mine a first-stage DSO operation and evaluate longer-term proposals for production of high-purity titanium and vanadium chemicals.
It will leave Neometals free to concentrate on its proposed development of a refinery in Kalgoorlie to process material from its 13.8%-owned Mt Marion project into lithium hydroxide.

A maiden 109,000oz JORC gold resource with 650,000oz silver at the Emu and Southwark deposits within Alt Resources’ Bottle Creek Gold Project, 100km NE of Menzies in Western Australia, has lifted resources at the company’s overall Mt Ida Gold Project to 2.8Mt @ 2.25g/t Au for 206,800oz.
The new Emu/Southwark resources of 1.65Mt @ 2.1g/t Au, including 1.55Mt @ 13g/t Ag, is the 1st modern resource for the Bottle Creek project and the 1st estimate undertaken by Alt within its larger Mt Ida Gold Project, shaping up as a promising gold hub.

Record production at its Inmaculada operation in Peru have helped South American-focused Hochschild lift June half-year profit from continuing operations to $US22.2M before exceptional items, up from $18.2M in H1FY2017. Adjusted EBITDA also rose to $161.9M ($136M).
H1 attributable production of 19.9Moz silver equivalent (17.9Moz) at AISC of $11.90/oz ($12/oz) keeps Hochschild on track for FY2018 production of 38Moz AgEq at $13-13.40/oz).
CEO Ignacio Bustamante says Hochschild’s brownfields program is starting to generate exciting results, with 59.2Moz AgEq added at Inmaculada and good progress at Arcata in Peru.

Strong performance across its Tier 1 assets have driven Yancoal Australia’s turnaround result for the June half year to an attributable NPAT of $A361M, from its $14M loss in H1FY2017. EBITDA was $980M (H1FY2017: $277M).
The result was achieved on an increase in revenue to $2.35B from $832M on equity share saleable coal production of 18.1Mt (8.8Mt). Yancoal sales comprised 14.6Mt thermal and 4.6Mt metallurgical coal.
Saleable coal production at its Tier 1 NSW mines was 8.8Mt at Moolarben (81% owned), 6Mt at Mount Thorley Warkworth (82.9%) and 6.4Mt at Hunter Valley Ops (51%).

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West Australian-based mining services and processing company Mineral Resources posted NPAT of $A272M for the year to end-June, up from $201M in FY17.  Normalised EBITDA rose to $507M ($464M).
MD Chris Ellison says MRL’s growth in FY18 will support its creation of long-term earnings capacity in coming years.

Gruyere gold project developer Gold Road has recruited senior AngloGold Ashanti manager Duncan Gibbs as MD-CEO following the resignation of Ian Murray.
Gibbs has led AngloGold’s Sunrise Dam and Tropicana mines in Western Australia. Gold Road says his role through development to steady-state production at Tropicana parallels the situation at Gruyere, its 50-50 JV with Gold Fields.
Murray will step down mid-Sept after leading Gold Road’s 10-year transformation from explorer to the brink of mine production.

Ausdrill is set to move up the ranks of Australian mining services companies with binding agreement to acquire underground hard-rock drilling specialist Barminco for $A271.5M - $25.4M cash plus 150.7M shares.
The agreement has been reached as Ausdrill announces a 95.7% increase in NPAT to $61.1M for the year to end June (FY18). EBITDA rose 30.6% to $177.4M.
Barminco has operations in Africa, India and Egypt as well as Australia. Exec chairman Ian Cochrane says it’s a transformational opportunity that will broaden its strategic footprint and create a lower-capital intensity, higher-return business with annual revenue about $1.8B.

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With its Koolan Island iron ore project closer to a revival, West Australian miner Mount Gibson’s $A64.3M business interruption insurance payout over the project’s collapse has boosted its 2017-18 profit to $99.3M. FY17 profit was $24.8M.
Sales of 3.6Mwt (FY17: 3.2Mt), comprising high-grade Iron Hill production and Extension Hill stockpiles, delivered $250.3M ($192.7M) despite the widening discount on lower grade product that reduced its average realised fines product price to $US30/dmt ($44/t).
Mount Gibson’s total cash reserves grew $10.8M to $457.5M.

West Australian miner Anova is confident a new mining plan will enable it to improve the outcome of a new mining campaign at its Second Fortune gold mine, 220km NE of Kalgoorlie.
Anova’s first mining campaign, completed in July, delivered 3,701oz against its expectations of 5,503oz largely due to areas of high dilution, increased haulage and processing costs, and reduced mill grades.
The company has begun discussions with secured lenders on extending its existing $A3M working capital facility to support its second campaign.

Chilean copper producer Antofagasta continues to predict a strong second half performance after posting EBITDA of $US904.2M for the 6 months to June (H1), down from $1.1M a year earlier. Pre-tax profit fell 32.4% to $465.6M.
Group copper production fell 8.5% to 317,000t while group cash costs rose to $1.92/lb from $1.56/lb.
CEO Iván Arriagada says tonnages and unit costs should improve substantially as mined grades increase.
Antofagasta is maintaining FY2018 guidance at 705,000-740,000t at $1.35/lb. 

South African major Gold Fields is making another attempt to stem the losses at its South Deep mine 45km SW of Johannesburg, announcing restructure plans that will see it cut workforce numbers by 1,560 or 28%.
A s189 consultation process under South Africa’s Labour Relations Act has begun with unions and stakeholders.
The company says the new round of changes will have a significant impact on South Deep's gold production, but it will take several months of detailed mine planning to come up with an estimate.
Gold Fields will record an impairment of R4.8B in its accounts, lowering the carrying value of the mine to R20.7B.

The discovery of the potential for rutile as a by-product promises to enhance the value of Sovereign’s PFS-stage Malingunde graphite project in Malawi.
Australian-based Sovereign is planning a low-cost development producing 44,000tpa high-quality graphite concentrate over 17 years from Malingunde’s soft, saprolite-hosted graphite.
Recent testwork has highlighted the potential to process the graphite tailings to produce clean rutile concentrates via a simple process flowsheet, establishing additional revenue streams.
MD Dr Julian Stephens says Sovereign will undertake further studies without compromising its development of graphite operations.