News

July 21, 2008

That Was The Week That Was ... In London

By Henry Sandford

The misery continued in London's mining sector this week, the retreat in the oil price giving the market little encouragement, and frustrating gold bugs by pulling down the yellow metal. The majors all fell, with Anglo American (LSE: AAL) down three per cent to 2,799p, BHP Billiton (LSE: BLT) off six per cent to 1,600p, Rio Tinto (LSE: RIO) falling five per cent to 5,070p, and Xstrata (LSE: XTA) slipping eight per cent to 3,474p as it announced the shutdown of its Lennard Shelf zinc-lead joint venture with Teck Cominco in Australia, citing surging costs and low zinc and lead prices.

Among the fully-listed large caps, Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation (LSE: ENRC) lost nine per cent to 1,036p, and Kazakhmys (LSE: KAZ) fell five per cent to 1,352p, despite confirming that it is in early stage offer talks. International Ferro Metals (AIM: IFL) was down 12 per cent to 82.75p as chief operating officer Ronnie Barnard resigned. Ukrainian iron ore producer Ferrexpo (LSE: FXPO) dropped 16 per cent to 270.15p on general weakness in the iron ore sector.

That said, a much...