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Teck, which currently controls about 14% of Erdene's common shares, aims to boost exploration on the Halifax miner's wholly owned Altan Nar gold-polymetallic project, located in southwest Mongolia, 200 kilometres from the border with China.

The moderate peak power demand, favorable coal prices, and the resurgent Southeast Asian economy are likely to drive investments in this market. Furthermore, power generation additions, increase in electricity tariffs, and smart-grid rollouts are expected to draw investments in the T&D market.

Innovations in renewable distributed power generation, along with attractive new financing mechanisms, are providing residential customers with new options to manage their energy use and generate their own power.  Known collectively as distributed energy resources (DER), these innovations are causing a broad disruption that is altering the traditional relationship between utilities and their residential customers. 

Zhang Yue: There are two reasons. One, rapid urbanization in China is driving significant investments in infrastructure development. At the same time, innovative financing and investment products are also pouring money into the industry. When demand is strong and the market is good, people do not have much enthusiasm for new technology. They are not motivated to innovate because the profits are there.

Demand for infrastructure investment is rising not only in emerging markets seeking cash to build new projects but in developed countries suffering from budgetary pressure, while needing to renew ageing bridges, roads and water systems and to invest in alternative energy projects.

Xstrata Plc (XTA.LN) said Wednesday it has ticked off on an investment of US$1.47 billion in the Antapaccay copper project in Peru after wining environmental approval for the project. The mine is slated to come into production in the second half of 2012 as the nearby Tintaya operation reaches the end of its life, with construction to begin in the third quarter of 2010.

Power demand in Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil supplier, is set to increase 8 percent a year as the population expands and the government invests to spur economic growth. The utility plans to invest 205 billion riyals in capacity expansion by 2018.

For example, Phoenix-based Freeport-McMoRan Copper and Gold Inc., the biggest miner in the state, has a mine in Peru with enough reserves to last until at least 2074, and one in Africa with nearly 50 years of reserves, far more than its Arizona properties. Grupo Mexico, the parent company of major Arizona miner Asarco, has a mine in Peru with 172 years' worth of copper left and one in Mexico with 124 years' worth.

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.