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Wednesday, June 10, 2009.

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I'm Shannon O'Donnell.

Making headlines today:

Only a low volume of production would come from the main shaft of AngloGold Ashanti's Savuka mine, near Carletonville, for the remainder of the second quarter. This was as some of its subshaft infrastructure had been damaged in earlier seismic events.

On Wednesday, the South African gold major announced that the primary and tertiary shafts of the mine's three-shaft system hadn't been damaged in a series of seismic events that occurred close to its shaft infrastructure on May 22.

However, the subshaft barrel below the 100 level and the shaft installations on the 101 level and the 102 level, which was the main infrastructure supporting the mine's Carbon Leader Reef production, had been damaged.

Operational staff were assessing the best way to rehabilitate the subshaft infrastructure and the degree to which select mining on the Ventersdorp Contact Reef at the mine could continue while the rehabilitation was being undertaken.

On Wednesday, the world's largest diversified-miner, BHP Billiton, announced that free-on-board prices for metallurgical coal products would fall by 58% this year, compared with 2008.

It said that the terms for a "significant portion" of its 2009 metallurgical coal contracts have been concluded, following settlements with key global customers.

BHP Billiton, in a joint venture with Mitsubishi Corporation, is the world's largest supplier of seaborne traded hard coking coal to the international steel industry.

Also making headlines:

South African gold-mining major Gold Fields launches an employee housing programme.
Chinese small mills buy 50-million tons of Brazilian miner Vale's iron-ore.
Gold major AngloGold Ashanti forms an alliance focusing on the Middle East and North Africa.
And, platinum junior Sylvania Resources improves its Great Australian takeover offer.

That's a round up of news making headlines today. For more on these and other stories please visit miningweekly.com.