Once again, International Mining Project News is heavy with development stories from around the globe. Amongst the developers were several gold and copper companies. The gold plays will be looking forward to a strong gold price as they near production, with many analysts tipping the precious metal will nudge the $1,000/0z-mark during the first part of the year and remain at current levels for at least the remainder of 2008. Copper plays on the other hand are looking down the barrel of decidedly worse prices for this year, though copper is still trading at historic highs.

Canadian NovaGold has successfully negotiated a legal tussle regarding the development of its Rock Creek gold mine in Alaska as locals challenged the company’s Clean Water Act permit for a second time. A US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has confirmed an earlier decision from June that has freed up NovaGold to move forward. Fellow gold play Dragon Mining has been granted the Environmental Permit for mining at its Jokisivu project in Finland. Dragon was featured in the December 2007 edition of IM.

Other developments making headlines included the massive Ambatovy nickel-cobalt, where Sherritt International has awarded the contract for construction of the crystallisation plant to VWS Envig, and the expansion of the Rusina-European Nickel nickel-cobalt joint venture in the Philippines, where EuroNickel is applying its proven nickel leaching technology.

Meanwhile, Ramelius Resources enjoyed a treasured and golden milestone at its Wattle Dam project in Western Australia, when production eclipsed 31,151 oz gold – or 1 t. Paladin Resources would have also been enjoying a subdued celebration after making the predicted production figures for the December quarter. The company now expects to produce at the nameplate capacity of 2.6 Mlb uranium oxide this year.

And there is much, much more in 30 pages of project news released within the past two weeks.

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