Trilliant Exploration Corp. announced that it is pleased that Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa appointed Germanico Pinto to the cabinet and welcomes him to his new role as the Oil And Mining Minister of Ecuador.

“Minister Pinto will play a crucial role in helping mining companies, including Trilliant, and we look forward to working with the Ministry in every possible way. As a good standing tax payer in Ecuador we are committed to the long term of building the Mining sector of the country and we see this as a very positive step moving forward,” said William Lieberman, President of Trilliant Exploration.

The Ecuadorian government has said the new mining law approved early this year will open the door to a potentially lucrative and underdeveloped industry in the country and that the country’s mineral potential could amount around $110 billion. Read more » »

press release:

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA — (Marketwire) — 06/10/09 — Alberta Star Development Corp. (the “Company”) (TSX VENTURE: ASX)(OTCBB: ASXSF)(FRANKFURT: QLD), reports that it has filed a “Notice of Appearance and Request for Special Notice” with the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Idaho regarding the Sterling Silver Mining Company and its corporate assets (OTCBB: SRLQE) situated in the Coeur d’Alene, Idaho mining district.

The Company maintains a strong balance sheet and has no long term debt. The Company continues to search for additional cost cutting measures, while maintaining seasoned and qualified management and fulfilling its stated mandate of acquiring a world class advanced stage exploration project. As a result of the severity of the global financial crisis, the Company expects there to be a serious shortage of available capital and exploration risk capital that is available to the resource industry in the foreseeable future. The Company intends to continue to conserve its working capital and review new business opportunities that are being presented to management. The Company’s working capital is invested in short term instruments and are not exposed to any repayment risks associated with short term commercial paper or asset-backed commercial paper. These instruments comply with the Company’s strict investment criteria and policy of utilizing only investment guaranteed instruments that are paid promptly on maturity and are redeemable on demand. Read more » »

Hana Mining Ltd. announces that the Board of Directors has approved and adopted a Shareholder Rights Plan (the “Plan”). The Plan entitles shareholders to severable rights to purchase additional shares of the Company upon the occurrence of a take-over bid (i.e. an offer to purchase 20% or more of the issued shares, when aggregated with the offeror’s shareholdings), which fails to meet certain conditions. Bids which meet these conditions (”Permitted Bids”) do not trigger the rights to purchase additional shares. Permitted Bids are offers which meet all of the following conditions:

1. The offer is made to all shareholders and includes shares issuable upon exercise of share purchase warrants, stock options and other convertible securities;

2. The offer must contain an irrevocable and unqualified provision that no shares will be taken up or paid for prior to the close of business on a date less than 60 days following the date of the Bid, and only if at such date more than 50% of the shares held by independent shareholders have been deposited or tendered and not withdrawn;
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Professional geologist, Laurie Stephenson, President & CEO of Impala Mineral Exploration Corp. announced today that he will begin an in-depth, on-site technical review of the company’s newly acquired Busolwa Gold Property.

LAKE VICTORIA GREENSTONE BELT

The property is located in the Lake Victoria Greenstone Belt in the south-eastern part of the Geita District in Tanzania - home to AngloGold’s Geita Mine with 18 million proven ounces and Barrick’s Bulyanhulu Mine with 12 million ounces highly productive mines with 2009’s annual production running at 250,000 and 200,000 ounces of gold respectively. Greenstone belts are known worldwide as potential hosts for base and precious metals.

OBJECTIVE OF ON-SITE TECHNICAL

The purpose of Laurie Stephenson’s on-site technical review is to begin analyzing data contained in an 85 page technical report written in 2000 that is not NI43101 compliant. It is the Company’s goal to have a consulting NI43101 Qualified Person onsite with in 2 weeks to begin writing a compliant technical report on the Busolwa gold property. Mr. Stephenson will also begin planning Impala’s 2009 work program. Read more » »

Source:
By KRISTEN HAYS Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle

ConocoPhillips put its exploration efforts front and center Wednesday in an apparent effort to debunk Wall Street’s view that the Houston-based oil major grows by acquisition rather than finding its own oil and gas.

That view was bolstered when ConocoPhillips slashed $34 billion in asset values late last year to bring them in line with oil and natural gas prices that plunged from lofty highs as the worst recession in decades gripped the globe. The company also is eliminating more than 1,300 jobs.

Some analysts said the write-offs exposed the potential weakness in ConocoPhillips’ prevailing growth-by-acquisition strategy.

Bernstein Research analyst Neil McMahon suggested in a recent report that ConocoPhillips consider spinning off its exploration operation. Read more » »

HONG KONG - (AFP) - Most Asian stock markets slipped on Thursday amid more grim economic news from Japan and China, with the broad market index in Tokyo sinking to a 25-year low.

Japan’s Nikkei-225 fell 2.41 percent after the government said the economy logged its worst performance in nearly 35 years, contracting 3.2 percent in the three months to December, or 12.1 percent on an annualised basis.

“The figures are not good,” said Prime Minister Taro Aso. “The economy is worsening.”

China also announced that factory output and retail sales were slowing down, sparking fears that the global crisis is taking more of a toll on the world’s third-largest economy than first thought.

The news from China led Sydney to close down 0.3 percent, as mining shares suffered on the weak Chinese industrial output figures. Read more » »

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – ASX-listed Environmental Clean Technologies (ECT) has reached an agreement with Indonesian coal mining company Ilthabi Bara Utama (IBU) to start initial testing work on low-rank coal samples from IBU’s East Kalimantan mine for its suitability in the use of the Coldry process.

ECT said the Coldry process was the world’s first economic method for dewatering brown coal, creating a high-energy pellet with significantly reduced carbon-dioxide emissions when compared with brown coal, while being suitable for export as a black coal substitute.

ECT CEO Kos Galtos noted that following the completion of the necessary testing, a business case would be developed with a view of moving to a heads of agreement, if all tests proved successful.

“IBU can provide sufficient coal supply to meet current and future coal requirements for over ten-million ton a year Coldry production plant. The opportunity to access such a large resource in Indonesia will provide the Coldry plant with a key footprint into the South East Asian market, where there are a large number of coal-fired power stations, and consequently, a huge market for the final product.”
Read more » »