Nickel is breaking away from its three month plateau of $29,900/30,000 a tonne rising to $30,100/30,150 a tonne Wednesday.  It also hit record a record high of $30,250 earlier this week.

“Nickel is getting stronger…I think copper will recover as well and that would strengthen the whole complex,” an analyst in London said.

To read the origional article, click here

- Yahoo Finance - Thursday October 12, 8:31 PM

Total Amount Raised:  C$406,940,666
Total Flow Through:  C$54,639,083
Total Base Metals:  C$213,078,548 (Between 30 companies)
Total Precious Metals: C$279,870,452  (Between 46 companies, 19 specializing in gold)
Total Diamond: C$2,949,000 (Between 3 companies)
  
  
Top Regions:  Canada (with 50 companies, 13 of which are in BC) and Latin America (with 12, 4 of which are in Mexico).
Top Brokers:  GMP Securities with $132,250,000 and Sprott Securities with $105,000,000.

 Information collected from the Canadian Financing Bulletin

September 21:  London-based BDI Mining Corp. announced that it is expanding operations at its Cempaka alluvial diamond mine in Indonesia. This expansion will produce up to 100,000 carats of rough stones a year.
 
-         [AFNS] LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM 26-09-06

Jonathan Oppenheimer, a director of De Beers announced that De Beers will launch a $2 million project to improve the lives of the alluvial (or “informal”) diamond miners in Tanzania.

“De Beers does not have a business interest in informal mining, but we cannot sit idly by and watch millions of African miners and their families suffer.” says Openheimer.

-  [AFNS] NEW YORK, USA 26-09-06  

For more information click here to read the full article at HDR Antwerp Facets Online. 

The Mining Association of Canada warns that the level of the country’s base metal reserves have fallen by 50-80% in the last 25 years and that the industry may require up to 81,000 new workers to meet demand over the next decade.