SANTIAGO (Reuters) – It will take more time, and lots more money, to bring new copper supply online, as miners venture into more challenging geographies and geologies to meet soaring demand.

Passion for the red metal, used in wiring and construction, has surged on rapid urbanization in China, India and Brazil. This thirst, coupled with project delays around the world, sent LME copper prices soaring 260 percent over two years to a record high of $10,190 a tonne in February.

TORONTO, March 29 (Reuters) – Lundin Mining Corp (LUN.TO: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz)
and Inmet Mining (IMN.TO: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) said on Tuesday they had agreed to
walk away from a deal that would have created a C$9 billion
copper producer, and Lundin said it was exploring other
options.

The tie-up would have created a Canadian copper miner
called Symterra with annual copper production of some 500,000
tonnes of copper per year by 2017.

TORONTO (Reuters) – The Canadian oil sands, a vast expanse of tar and sand being mined for crude oil, yielded treasure of another kind this week when an oil company worker unearthed a 110-million-year-old dinosaur fossil that wasn’t supposed to be there.

The fossil is an ankylosaur, a plant-eating dinosaur with powerful limbs, armor plating and a club-like tail. Finding it in this region of northern Alberta was a surprise because millions of years ago the area was covered by water.

TORONTO (Reuters) – Silver is hot – even for gold miners – and those who held off on selling their silver in advance for quick cash during the global economic downturn are reaping the benefits of soaring prices.

Those who did sell are feeling a bit sheepish, as the spot price for silver – both an industrial and precious metal- has doubled in the last year.

TORONTO, March 25 (Reuters) – Silver is hot – even for gold
miners – and those who held off on selling their silver in
advance for quick cash during the global economic downturn are
reaping the benefits of soaring prices.

Those who did sell are feeling a bit sheepish, as the spot
price for silver – both an industrial and precious metal- has
doubled in the last year.

TORONTO (Reuters) – The head of Goldcorp (G.TO: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) said on Wednesday it was keeping an eye on early-stage gold projects in Colombia, even as it focuses on developing its large pipeline of projects elsewhere in the Americas.

“We’re looking at early-stage opportunities in Colombia, along with many other countries,” said Goldcorp CEO Chuck Jeannes in an exclusive interview at the Reuters Mining and Steel Summit.

TORONTO (Reuters) – Major Drilling (MDI.TO: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) has been surprised by a rapid ramp-up of demand for its mine-drilling services this year, the mirror image of a collapse in late 2008, its chief executive said on Tuesday.

“We lost 65 percent of our business in 90 days and it looks like it’s all coming back in 90 days,” CEO Francis McGuire told the Reuters Global Mining and Steel Summit.