Madagascar Development

It is always good to see a junior put one over a major and this has been done in classic style by Jubilee Platinum with BHP Billiton. Doubtless the people at BHP Billiton underestimated Colin Bird, chief executive of Jubilee Platinum, as he has a quiet style, but underneath that he is shrewd negotiator. The story dates back to the beginning of November when the two companies agreed to carry out a large scale helicopter VTEM geophysical survey over their adjacent properties in Madagascar. This was going to be paid for by BHP Billiton and the data would be shared. The idea was that this could lead to a joint venture over the combined property which is about 160 kms south east of Antananarivo. Jubilee’s Ambodilafa concessions covers a 20 kms long by 4kms wide mafic- ultramafic system. Before these concessions came into the hands of Jubilee some reconnaissance work was carried out in the late 1960s which intersected 93 metres of disseminated sulphides containing pyrrhotite, pen...

An exploration company that found a potentially huge titanium deposit in Madagascar has said it expects the 30-year project to cost $150 million, a fraction of Rio Tinto's $585 million mine opened last year. Madagascar Resources director Jules Leclezio said a feasibility study of the Toliara sands project in the southwest, which Kumba Resources has an option to buy outright, would be completed by the end of 2008. "We will need $150 million to finalise the project," Leclezio told journalists in Antananarivo on Tuesday. He added that this made it less costly than Rio Tinto's rival titanium mine, which will need a $585 million investment over its lifespan. Last year Rio Tinto announced it would go ahead with its concession to mine ilmenite, the ore of titanium dioxide -- a white pigment used to colour paint, plastics and toothpaste -- in Taolagnaro, southeast Madagascar. Mining experts say the world's fourth largest island, though largely unexplored, has big untapped...

Whoever thought it could happen? The world's most populous country, with what seemed like a bottomless pool of low-skilled workers, is experiencing a labor shortage in its big manufacturing regions. David Barboza of The New York Times reports a shortage of workers at hundreds of Chinese factories, particularly in Guangdong and Fujian, the two provinces at the heart of China's export-driven economy. At first glance, the result looks like a union leader's dream come true: Wages are going up, and workers are demanding - and getting - better working conditions and benefits. Minimum wages, which averaged $58 to $74 a month, excluding benefits, in 2004, have climbed about 25 percent over the last three years in Shenzhen, Beijing and Shanghai. Wages at larger factories operated by multinationals, which are typically $100 to $200 a month, are also rising. But it is a far more complicated story than that, a textbook case of how the global economy has developed. During the last 100...