Mining

China's steel industry has sent a high-level delegation to Brazil to gather support for a campaign opposing BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto's iron ore joint venture in Australia, a report said on Monday. The Financial Review newspaper said officials from the China Industry and Steel Association flew to Brazil last week seeking closer ties with Vale, the world's top iron producer. "They have a common concern about the competition between Australia and Brazil," an unnamed Chinese steel mill... Read Full Story

Iraq struck a deal with Russian energy giant Lukoil on Saturday to develop one of the world's biggest untapped oilfields as part of efforts by Baghdad to dramatically ramp up its crude output. The agreement over the West Qurna-2 reservoir with Lukoil, which will share the project with Norwegian firm StatoilHydro, comes a day consortiums led by Shell and CNPC were awarded contracts. The deals reached so far in the two-day auction promise to increase Iraq's oil production by more than 4.2... Read Full Story

'+company+ ' ( TSX: '+exchange+'.'+symbol+' , Stock Forum ) '+percent+' Stockhouse Canadian Small and Micro-cap Stock Report for Friday, December 11, 2009 TORONTO (SHfn) – Some speculators made more than a few pennies from a copper 43-101 Friday, while gold/silver samples lifted shares of a small explorer. Duluth Metals (TSX: T.DM, Stock Forum) shares climbed 69% to $1.79 on Friday after the miner reported the receipt of an independent NI 43-101 compliant report on the resource estimate... Read Full Story

United States Oil & Gas Corp. Acquisition Target Puts in Solid Performance. ( EMAILWIRE.COM , December 14, 2009 ) Del Mar, CA -- United States Oil & Gas Corporation today announced one of its pending acquisitions , United Oil. On a year-to-date basis through October 31, 2009, gasoline sales at its convenience outlet increased by 35%. Sales grew by 74%. It seems that despite the rise in oil prices, demand remains inelastic as customers are neither cutting back on driving nor on heating... Read Full Story

Today on Stockhouse Your opinion matters. Submit an article to Stockhouse today at submissions@stockhouse.com. Submission guidelines can be found here. Gene Arensberg believes the gold/silver party is just getting started in his Got Gold Special Report. This as Andrew Mickey of Q1 Publishing attempts to breathe new life into an old investing idea. Top Bullboards post: “WM (Wallbridge Mining) owns 10,000,000 (shares of) DM (Duluth Metals): profitable way to own DM. I'll say it again... Read Full Story

Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto said Friday it had replaced its chief iron-ore negotiator ahead of critical price talks with China, but denied links to the arrest of executive Stern Hu. Rio Tinto spokesman Gervase Greene said former strategic marketing manager for iron ore Danny Goeman would take the lead role in the coming talks as part of a company-wide restructure. "Danny's principal responsibility will be to lead iron ore price negotiations on behalf of (Rio subsidiary) Hamersley... Read Full Story

The number of rigs actively exploring for oil and natural gas in the U.S. rose by 20 this week to 1,161. Baker Hughes Inc., based in Houston, said Friday that 757 rigs were exploring for natural gas and 393 for oil. Eleven were listed as miscellaneous. A year ago this week, the rig count stood at 1,790. Of the major oil- and gas-producing states, Texas gained seven rigs, Oklahoma gained six, Louisiana gained five, Alaska and Pennsylvania gained two and California, Colorado, New Mexico and... Read Full Story

Cheniere Energy Inc. (Amex: LNG) moved higher after Chief Market Strategist alerted to the sympathy play off XOM buying out XTO.  LNG was the no brainer play because it was not only at the dead lows on the daily chart but also has over 10% of its shares shorted.  This creates an easy pop type play.  Sure enough, the alert went out at the open at $1.93 and LNG just hit a high of the day at $2.15.  Another huge call to the premium members! RealTick graphics used with permission of... Read Full Story

SYDNEY (AFP) -- China's steel industry has sent a high-level delegation to Brazil to gather support for a campaign opposing BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto's iron ore joint venture in Australia, a report said on Monday. The Financial Review newspaper said officials from the China Industry and Steel Association flew to Brazil last week seeking closer ties with Vale, the world's top iron producer. "They have a common concern about the competition between Australia and Brazil," an unnamed Chinese... Read Full Story

A one-year-old boy was killed and 12 people were injured Tuesday as a series of moderate earthquakes struck Malawi and Tanzania, collapsing homes in a region near a new uranium mine, officials said. "The strongest earthquake was recorded early Tuesday and its magnitude was 5.9 on the Richter scale," said Leonard Kalindekafe, director of the Malawi Geological Survey. At least 12 tremors ranging between 4.8 and 5.1 have hit the northern Karonga district since Sunday morning, he said. The... Read Full Story