The rough emerald and beryl auction in Lusaka, Zambia,
generated revenue of $15.2 million, but the gemstones sold for
an average of $2.42 per carat, the first dip in per-carat prices
in the last five auctions of lower-quality stones by Gemfields.

“The results were reasonable, but probably not as optimal as
they could have been,” Chief Executive Ian Harebottle said.

Gemfields, which mines emeralds at Kagem in Zambia, as able
to sell only 36 percent of the 17.34 million carats offered for
sale at the auction.

“A factor in this reduction may have been due to a number of
declined auction invitations, which was higher than in prior
auctions, most notably due to the travel demands placed on
clients in reaching Lusaka, typically involving three flights
and approaching 24 hours of journey time,” the company said.

Gemfields said earlier this month that the potential ban on
selling gemstones outside Zambia could hurt its competitive
position against countries like Brazil and Colombia.

Zambia is the third largest producer of emeralds after
Colombia and Brazil.

“At this stage, it is unclear whether the (company’s)
higher-quality auction in Singapore scheduled for June 2013 will
go ahead,” JPMorgan Cazenove analyst Alexander Mees said.

“The government of Zambia is a 25 percent shareholder in
Kagem and so would presumably want to consider the impact of any
changes on the value of its investment as well as the tax
remittance currently being generated.”

The company said it would continue to seek a resolution to
the prevailing situation.

Gemfields produced 6.6 million carats in the quarter ended
Dec. 31 at Kagem, its only producing mine, up from 3.9 million
carats in the prior year.

“We are concerned that volumes have been significantly
lighter for the past two auctions, especially as mine production
is expected to increase,” Canaccord Genuity’s Jeremy Dibb said.

“Though the lowest quality stones are by nature the lowest
revenue contributors this will result in a significant inventory
build.”

Shares in the company were trading down marginally at 26.5
pence at 0844 GMT on Monday on the London Stock Exchange.

The miner, which said it remained on track to meet its
sustainable output target of 20 million tonnes of ore per year
during the second quarter, expects to triple 2013 production to
between 15 million and 18 million tonnes at Tonkolili.

Citigroup analyst Michael Flitton, who rates African
Minerals as one of his key picks within the sector, said the
company’s production forecast was better than he expected.

He added that his cash costs-per-tonne expectation might be
too high as costs fall with increased volumes.

The company said cash costs were expected to fall to about
$30 per tonne by the end of the year. The costs were under $45
per tonne in February, the company said.

“While significant progress was made in 2012, delays in
construction and commissioning of the wet process plant and the
prolonged and severe 2012 wet season, impacted operations,”
African Minerals said in a statement.

The company produced 5.1 million tonnes last year. It
exported 4.3 million tonnes, below its 5 million tonne target.

African Minerals said it expected to export between 13
million tonnes and 15 million tonnes in 2013.

“While investors were disappointed by a series of delays to
ramp up targets in the last year, reaching the end of a bumpy
ride should help African Minerals gradually rebuild some
investor confidence,” Jefferies anlayst Seth Rosenfeld said.

African Minerals shares rose to 259.75 pence in morning
trading, making the stock the top percentage gainer on the
London Stock Exchange.

“By shipping only fines during the dry seasons and saving
low moisture content and easily drainable lump for the wet
season, African Minerals should not face the same challenges
with ore liquification that arose in 2012,” Rosenfeld said.

High moisture content, particularly in fines, makes the
transport of iron ore unsafe as it could lead to liquefaction of
the mineral, which in some instances, has resulted in the
capsizing and sinking of ships.

The miner, which owns the Tonkolili mine that sits on one of
Africa’s largest iron ore deposits, said adjusted operating loss
narrowed to $27.9 million in 2012 from $35.6 million a year
earlier.

Iron ore prices .IO62-CNI=SI have rebounded from their
2012 low of $87 per tonne and are now at about $139 as China’s
steel mills replenish their stocks.

African Minerals, which faced a short-term funding crunch
late last year and reworked its finances to meet working capital
needs at that time, said it expected to be cashflow positive on
a sustainable basis during the second quarter.

Earlier this year, the company established a $100 million
facility for general corporate purposes and a separate $250
million facility to provide more working capital flexibility.

“We’ve got the headroom now … we did have a tight period
last year and that’s exactly why we put that financing in
place,” Chief Executive Keith Calder said.

(Editing by Don Sebastian)

The miner said it expected to produce between 3.3 million
and 3.6 million dry metric tonnes in 2013, and forecast sales in
the range of 3.6 million to 3.8 million dry metric tonnes.

The sales forecast includes a stockpile of around 390,000
wet metric tonnes of ore the company kept aside at the end of
2012 as it sought to ship the ore at higher prices.

Iron ore prices have rebounded from their
2012 low of $87 per tonne and are now at roughly $134, backed by
demand from China as the country’s steel mills replenish their
stocks.

London Mining said its plan to expand capacity at Marampa to
5 million tonnes per year by the end of 2013 was on track.

The company said it had started looking for strategic
partners as it plans to eventually boost Marampa output to 16
million tonnes per year.

“Marampa is a strong-value proposition producing really
high-quality ore and we’ve got more ore to come that we haven’t
placed with either Glencore or Vitol, so there’s potential for
further finance-related offtake arrangements there as well,”
Chief Executive Graeme Hossie said on a post-earnings call.

The company, which also has operations in Greenland, Saudi
Arabia and Colombia, said it was in talks with potential
partners for its Isua magnetite iron ore project in Greenland.

London Mining’s loss before interest, tax, depreciation and
amortisation narrowed to $14.2 million in the year ended Dec. 31
from $36.4 million a year earlier.

Full-year production of 1.63 million wet metric tonnes, or
1.52 million dry metric tonnes, was ahead of its target of 1.5
million dry metric tonnes, the company had said in January.

London Mining shares, which have halved in value over the
past year, were up marginally at 136 pence at 1030 GMT on
Thursday the London Stock Exchange.

Premier Farnell shares rose nearly 7 percent in early
trading on Thursday morning on the London Stock Exchange, making
the stock one of the top percentage gainers on the FTSE 250
midcap index.

“Whilst we have limited visibility and current market
conditions continue to be uncertain, the new financial year has
started positively,” Chief Executive Laurence Bain said.

“From November onwards we have seen continuous improvement
in North America. We think we will be able to continue to drive
the momentum we are seeing at the moment.”

Active customer base rose 1.3 percent in the fourth quarter,
the company said.

Premier Farnell sells roughly half a million products
ranging from batteries and CCTV cameras to semiconductors and
capacitors in more than 100 countries, through its websites
including Newark, Farnell and element 14.

Adjusted profit before tax in the full year was 75.7 million
pounds ($114.6 million), from 88.5 million pounds in the year
earlier.

Revenue fell 3 percent to 952 million pounds for the year.

The company’s strategy of focussing on emerging markets and
customer-centric segments of the electronics market makes sense
and should allow Premier Farnell to continue to gain market
share, Deutsche Bank analyst Andy Chu said.

“Despite a soft macro-economic backdrop, we expect Premier
Farnell to actively manage costs and improve margins over time,”
Chu added, raising his price target on the company’s stock to
250 pence from 200 pence.

Revenue from the company’s marketing and distribution (MDD)
business in the United States fell 6 percent to 353.8 million
pounds, accounting for about 37 percent of the total turnover.

Premier Farnell shares rose to 232.9 pence but lost some of
those gains to trade up 3 percent at 225.0 pence at 0957 GMT.
($1 = 0.6608 British pounds)

(Reporting by Brenton Cordeiro in Bangalore; Editing by
Gopakumar Warrier and Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)

Avocet said it was actively exploring a “non-equity
solution” with Macquarie Bank – with which it has a
hedging agreement – to restructure its finances, after talks
with its major shareholders.

Chief Executive David Cather told Reuters that an equity
offering was not preferred by the shareholders.

The company said on Thursday the ore reserves at Avocet’s
Inata mine in Burkina Faso are now estimated to yield 920,000
ounces of gold, down from 1.85 million ounces estimated earlier.

Avocet, which has several exploration projects in Burkina
Faso and Guinea, said last month that a share issuance was one
of the options being considered to raise funds.

The company had $8 million in hand at Dec. 31, apart from
roughly $40 million held by Societe des Mines de Belahouro
(SMB), the unit that operates the Inata mine.

The cash-in-hand was insufficient for planned expenses and
Avocet was considering alternatives, including a restructuring
of its hedging agreement with Macquarie or the feasibility of
using the funds with SMB, the company said.

The forward sales hedging deal, which has an outstanding
value of around $130 million, restricts Avocet from accessing
surplus cash from SMB.

“Avocet is currently in advanced discussions with Macquarie
Bank as well as other financiers,” Cather said in a statement.

Avocet said on Thursday its core earnings fell 43 percent to
$48.3 million in 2012.

Cash costs are expected to rise to $1,103 per ounce in 2013
from $1000 per ounce last year. Gold production at Inata was
expected to remain little changed at 135,189 ounces.

Output, however, was estimated to decline annually to
roughly 87,500 ounces by 2016 when mining will cease at Inata.

Cather, who became CEO in July, has been looking at
preserving cash and scrapped Avocet’s dividend for the year.

Avocet’s shares have fallen more than 80 percent since June
when it slashed its output targets at Inata.

The stock was down nearly 5 percent at 24.34 pence on the
London Stock Exchange at 1149 GMT, valuing the company at less
than 50 million pounds ($75 million).
($1 = 0.6643 British pounds)

(Reporting by Brenton Cordeiro in Bangalore; Editing by Joyjeet
Das)

The Daw Mill Colliery in Warwickshire has been closed since
Feb. 22, when a blaze described by Coalfield as Britain’s worst
coal mine fire in 30 years began. The company had said that the
closure was likely to become permanent.

“A small, core team will remain on site to safely secure the
mine over the coming months,” UK Coal, the mining division of
Coalfield Resources, said on Thursday.

The closure is the second recent blow to a British coal
mining industry battling cheap imports and greener government
policy. Hargreaves Services said in December it would
close its century-old Maltby pit and cut 540 jobs.

Most deep coal mines closed in Britain after a 1984 miners’
strike, shrinking what had been an industry employing several
hundred thousand workers to a headcount of fewer than 6,000
workers by 2011.

UK Coal, Britain’s largest coal miner, employs almost half
of these miners. Its six surface pits and three deep mines,
including Daw Mill, account for about 40 percent of Britain’s
coal production.

UK Coal avoided a debt default and the closure of its
operations after completing a major restructuring in December,
which separated its coal mining operations and property assets.

The company had already been cutting costs at Daw Mill.
Ninety-six employees lost their jobs in November.

UK Coal Chief Executive Kevin McCullough told Reuters in an
interview on March 1 that the company might be able to redeploy
some of the 650 Daw Mill miners to its other collieries.

In its statement on Thursday, Coalfield said discussions
were continuing with the government “with a view to helping the
company manage the closure of Daw Mill and seeking a way forward
for the remaining mines”.

The Daw Mill colliery, which had production capacity of
around 1.5 million tonnes a year, supplies German-owned utility
E.ON UK’s Ratcliffe coal-fired power station.

Supplies to E.ON had not been interrupted as the company was
able to work through its coal stockpile on the surface,
McCullough said in the March 1 interview.

The underground fire at the Daw Mill Colliery, which started
last Friday, is likely to close one of the company’s three deep
mines permanently at a time when the once-mighty British coal
sector is battling greener government policy and cheap imports.

“This is a baptism of fire,” Kevin McCullough said in an
interview on Thursday, four weeks after his appointment as chief
executive of UK Coal, the mining division of Coalfield Resources
.

He said on Monday that UK Coal would not be viable as a
company in the event it were forced to shoulder the entire cost
of closing the Daw Mill pit in Warwickshire, where the fire is
still burning.

McCullough told Reuters on Thursday the company might be
able to redeploy some of the 650 miners employed at Daw Mill to
other collieries. This would reduce the size of any severance
package resulting from a closure.

“The two other deep mines and the surface mines that we have
are very sound. They’re generating cash and contributing to the
viability, which is very real, of UK Coal,” McCullough said.

He said that supplies from Daw Mill to its main customer,
E.ON, had not been interrupted as the company was
able to work through coal stockpile on the surface. UK Coal was
in talks with E.ON about longer-term supplies, he said.

“We are in the process of making alternative arrangements,”
McCullough said.

The Daw Mill fire is the second blow to Britain’s mining
industry in less than three months, after Hargreaves Services
said in December it would close the 100-year-old Maltby
pit in March with the loss of 540 jobs.

UK Coal employs almost half of Britain’s 6,000 coal miners.
Its three deep mines and six surface mines together account for
about 40 percent of UK coal production.

Shares in Coalfield Resources have lost over 80 percent of
their value in the past year.

CASH IS TIGHT

Britain’s coal miners supply about 30 percent of the fuel
for the country’s coal-fired power stations. Since the industry
was privatised in 1994, competition from imports has risen from
countries including Colombia, Russia and the United States.

Demand is likely to fall from 2016, when EU laws requiring
coal-fired power stations to slash emissions come into force.

Weighed down by debt and a pension deficit, UK Coal
undertook a complicated restructuring last year to help avoid
the closure of some operations.

McCullough, who joined UK Coal from RWE npower
this year, said the fact that the fire occurred so soon after
this restructuring made “cash management very tight”.

If Daw Mill were to be closed, UK Coal would potentially be
faced with a large severance bill. The company declined to
estimate these costs. It also declined to reveal severance costs
related to 96 redundancies at the same pit in November.

UK Coal representatives met with government officials this
week. The Energy Ministry said on Wednesday it was “committed to
exploring all the options” to support the company.

McCullough said the government, pension trustees and
creditors had been supportive of UK Coal’s current position.

“(They) all have confidence in the underlying viability of
the business,” he said.

Daw Mill produced 800,000 tonnes of coal in the first half
of 2012, a quarter of the UK Coal’s total output, but also cost
the company more on a relative basis.

With an operating cost of 58.6 million pounds over six
months, Daw Mill is more expensive for UK Coal to run than its
Kellingley deep mine, which produced 1.1 million tonnes at an
operating cost of 45.8 million pounds in the same comparison.

McCullough said UK Coal had no intention of selling Daw
Mill, which has coal reserves that could last until 2028.

“There’s nothing up for sale at the moment,” he said. “I
think that’s a very unlikely outcome.”

(Editing by Robin Paxton and Don Sebastian)

The company, which reported an underlying pretax loss of
19.6 million pounds ($29.7 million) for 2012, said it planned to
raise a net 44.8 million pounds through the 7-for-3 issue.

The issue of up to 208.25 million shares will be priced at
23 pence each, the company said, representing a discount of 67.8
percent to Wednesday’s close on the London Stock Exchange. The
company has about 89.25 million shares outstanding, according to
Thomson Reuters data.

Severfield-Rowen shares fell as much as 14.7 percent to 61
pence on Thursday before recovering to be down just 4.9 percent
at 68 pence at 1055 GMT.

The debt refinancing and the rights offering put the company
on much stronger footing and gave it a bit of headroom on its
balance sheet, Peel Hunt analyst Dominic Convey said.

“They’ve basically dealt with the future investment
requirements as well as short-term balance sheet needs.”

The company said it would use the proceeds from the issue to
strengthen its balance sheet. It also amended its revolving
credit facility, which would provide it with 35 million pounds.

The company had net debt of 29.7 million pounds on Dec. 31.

Executive Chairman John Dodds said the loss for the year was
primarily the result of “an unacceptable level of performance on
a small number of contracts.”

Severfield-Rowen recorded a pretax profit of 10.1 million
pounds in 2011. Its main business is the designing, fabrication
and erection of structural steelwork for construction projects,
including warehouses, industrial buildings and power stations.

The company said last week that its expectations for 2013
and 2014 were now lower. In January it said Chief Executive Tom
Haughey would step down after cost overruns at one of its
projects in London.

Severfield-Rowen had to cope with lower construction demand,
cost overruns at some projects, pricing pressures and delayed
settlement of contracts.

The company said its order book in the UK stood at 209
million pounds at the end of 2012.

The company has lost about two-thirds of its value in the
past year, leaving it with a market capitalisation of about 64
million pounds as of Wednesday’s close.
($1 = 0.66 British pounds)

(Editing by Joyjeet Das)

“Our decision to pause in 2013 will give us time to ensure
the readiness of all our equipment and people,” said Marvin
Odum, director, Upstream Americas.

Shell has spent more than $4.5 billion on its search for oil
in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas since it won licences to drill
there in 2005. Its 2012 season ended with the grounding of one
of its two drillships after a storm while it was being towed to
Seattle for the winter.

The company said earlier in February that its two rigs would
head to Asia for repairs and upgrades, casting further doubts
on its plan to do any drilling off the state’s coast this year.

The departures, expected within weeks, will draw a curtain
on the rigs’ accident-prone first year at work in the Arctic.

Shell’s multi-billion-dollar move into the environmentally
sensitive U.S. waters – the first since the Macondo disaster of
2010 – is being watched closely by the industry.

Even before the Kulluk drillship ran aground near Kodiak
Island on Dec. 31 after escaping its tow lines, the 2012
drilling program was stalled by troubles with support vessels
and regulatory scrutiny of the other rig, the Noble Discoverer,
which belongs to Noble Corp.

After the Arctic drilling season closed at the end of
October, a fire then broke out on the Discoverer.

There were even engine failures on the Aiviq, the specially
designed ship pulling the Kulluk, before it lost its tow
connection.

The fire on Friday forced UK Coal to evacuate more than 100
underground workers from Daw Mill, one of three deep coal mines
it operates.

Shares in Coalfield Resources, which shares ownership of UK
Coal with the UK Coal Employee Benefit Trust, were down more
than 11 percent at 5.55 pounds as of 1415 GMT.

UK Coal said on Monday it was unlikely to re-open the mine,
a site which had already been facing an uncertain future.

“This fire is on a scale not seen for decades,” Chief
Executive Kevin McCullough said.

“There’s a very, very slim chance that this mine will
re-open. We don’t want to give miners at the mine false hope.
Similar fires in Britain’s mines have led to permanent
closures.”

He said the fire could pose a threat to UK Coal as a
company.

“Our other mines are economically viable but the company as
a whole won’t be viable if the cost burden from a fire at Daw
Mill has to be shouldered by the company alone,” he said.

UK Coal will meet with Britain’s energy ministry this week
to discuss the future of the company’s operations, McCullough
said.

Its mines employ almost half of Britain’s 6,000 coalminers
and are among the remnants of the country’s once-mighty coal
industry which was privatised in 1994.

Daw Mill has a capacity of 1.6 million tonnes a year but was
producing below that.

“Daw Mill was UK Coal’s mainstay asset, but also its most
troublesome asset, both operationally and in terms of labour
relations. The fire may, unfortunately, be the death knell for
it, at least in its current structure,” Investec Securities said
in a note.

DEBT

Dogged by debt and losses, UK Coal has been vigorously
cutting costs at Daw Mill and had already reduced headcount
there.

The company avoided a debt default and closure of its
operations after completing a major debt restructuring with
shareholders in December.

Despite a surge in domestic coal use, British coal miners
have been hit hard by slumping international coal prices and
high diesel costs.

Most deep mines closed in Britain after a 1984 miners
strike, shrinking what had been an industry employing several
hundred thousand workers to a headcount of fewer than 6,000
workers by 2011.

UK Coal said that the main utility affected by the fire was
German utility E.ON, whose 2,000 MW Ratcliffe plant
burns coal from Daw Mill.

“Our supply chain is very varied and operations at Ratcliffe
are continuing to run as normal and in line with market
conditions,” said a spokesman for E.ON.

An analyst at a utility who requested anonymity said: “It’s
fair to say that E.ON will need to increase imports, but it’s
difficult to say by how much.”

Physical European coal prices gained around 1 percent on
Monday, buoyed by the fire and attacks on supplies at a major
mine in Colombia.