Mining Journal > Finance > Blue-chip miners boost market

Finance

Most of the heavyweight miners enjoyed solid weeks on the London market, in the process helping the blue-chip FTSE 100 near to a 52-week high on Friday.

While renewed optimism surrounding British banks was also boosting the FTSE, the leading miners held their own and generated plenty of investor interest.

Xstrata, with its back-and-forth sale of the Prodeco thermal coal operation with major shareholder Glencore, was in high demand advancing 12.5%.

Swiss banker Glencore had sold Prodeco to Xstrata last year, only to buy it back for at least £2.25 billion during the week.

Elsewhere, speculation surrounding an iron-ore spin-off from Petropavlovsk pushed the Russian gold miner 13.4% higher.

This would be a second spin-off in the metal for Petropavlovsk and, if the rumours are correct, Hong Kong would be the chosen market.

Other big names to enjoy fruitful weeks included Fresnillo (11.33%), Anglo American (10.6%), Rio Tinto (9.1%) and BHPB (7.2%).

However, the standout mover was South African-focused International Ferro Metals Ltd, which gained almost 24.6% after it said the market for its product had dramatically improved.

Due to the increased demand, the company is planning to almost treble its production in the next four to five years.

Copper dominated news when it came to commodities, mainly due to the impact of the earthquake in Chile on February 27.

On Monday, copper reached a five-week high in London after it was feared the earthquake would severely dent production out of the South American country, the world’s leading exporter of the red metal.
The fears were short-lived, however, as miners including Codelco and Anglo American resumed production quicker than expected.

Despite dropping back on Thursday, copper rebounded the next day, as equities gained on an improved economic outlook, to finish more than 5% higher over the week.

On AIM, Serabi Mining plc shares soared after news of a merger with an unknown third party emerged.
Shares in the gold miner jumped as much as 61.5% at one stage before finishing the week 23.1% higher.
Serabi said the talks were very preliminary in nature and there was no certainty that a potential merger or an offer for the company would be made.

Positive exploration news from a project in southern Argentina gave Mariana Resources a 21.9% jolt.
The company, which has offices in Sydney, said its Las Calandrias project contained high grade veins of gold and had more potential than originally thought.

Rambler Metals & Mining plc flourished with a 15.25% gain on news it had sold 25% of the first 175,000oz of payable gold from its Ming mine in Newfoundland to Sandstorm Resources Ltd. The sale also included additional future production, for a total of US$20 million.

In negative territory, Uranium miner Brinkley Mining plc declined 19.23% and Tunisia-focused Maghreb Minerals plc was down 18.75%. African Diamonds plc also continued a poor recent run, falling a further 8.6%.