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LIMA, Peru--China's Chinalco Mining Corp. International (3668.HK) has approved a $1.32 billion expansion project for its Toromocho copper project in central Peru. The company said the expansion could increase production capacity at Toromocho by 45%. Construction of the expansion project is expected to be "substantially completed" by the second quarter of 2016, Chinalco said.

The action of cooling things down plays a critical part of any mechanical or electric system, because the inevitable heat, produced by friction, is the number one cause of almost instant failure. So far, different methods that cool systems have been discovered, but not to the extent of performance that engineers dream of building their computers or mechanical devices (cars, for example). Oregon State University researchers, led by Terry Hendricks, have discovered a method of applying a nanostructured coating that could make the heat transfer more easily. Their findings have been published in the International Journel of Heat and Mass Transfer, and they also filed a patent for them.

As International Mining finishes its August article on the world copper situation and new technologies and ideas for its recovery, Ronald Thiessen, President and CEO of Northern Dynasty has some interesting comments on copper.

“In all cases, copper - a material already behind many great technological achievements of our time - has a growing and important role to play. Next time you open your refrigerator, adjust the thermostat on your heating/cooling system, load your dishwasher or laundry washer, turn on your state of the art plasma or LCD TV, dry your hair , charge your cell phone or PDA, or simply turn on your household lights take the time to consider how much energy is consumed.”

The state-owned National Aluminium Corporation (Nalco) claimed that India has identified a copper mine in Namibia as part of its latest international raw material drive.

China’s largest gold producer, China Gold International Resources Corp. Ltd said it has signed a deal to buy a copper mining property in Tibet in an all-stock deal valued at $742.3 million

Joseph C Pickard has been appointed as Chief Economist and Director of Commodities at The Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, Inc. (ISRI), succeeding Bob Garino, ISRI's Director of Commodities for the past 25 years. Pickard is currently serving as an economist for The International Copper Study Group in Lisbon, Portugal

Ryu Jin, chairman of Poongsan, was named the next chairman of the International Wrought Copper Council at the 2010 annual general assembly in Shanghai, China, Poongsan announced yesterday.

This is, in fact, the crux of the argument: It isn't enough to simply establish clear rules in a trading center. Governments can only successfully combat speculators if they coordinate their efforts worldwide and remove the cloak of secrecy from their commodities transactions. As long as this fails to happen, the price of copper will remain unpredictable and industry will be at the mercy of speculators. Companies will no longer be able to assume that copper will be expensive when it's scarce and cheap when it's available in abundance. Speculation destroys the basic signaling function that prices have in a market economy, says Heiner Flassbeck, chief economist at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). Although a lot of money moves around as a result of price distortions, speculation doesn't create any real value, says Flassbeck. "The only thing that's created is an illusion of value." Making Life Difficult for Everyone In the end, the popular assessment that speculators are the purest of capitalists is by no means correct. In truth, they are the biggest enemies of the market, because they undermine its central mechanism, the efficient balancing of supply and demand. In doing so, they make life difficult for everyone: for industry, which can no longer predict how expensive its raw materials will be; for consumers, who are forced to bear the costs; and, finally, for copper producers, who face more risk when planning ahead. When the executives at CODELCO in Santiago make investment decisions today, it will be another three to five years before the results become visible. That's how long it takes to develop a new mine or expand an existing mine. The company plans to invest about $15 billion by 2015, but its executives have never been so uncertain about whether their predictions are correct. One thing is clear: Production costs will continue to rise. Now that deposits near the surface, which are easier to mine, are becoming depleted, mining companies are forced to dig deeper and deeper pits.