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Friday, January 30, 2009.

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I'm Christy van der Merwe.

Making headlines today:

On Thursday, Gold Fields CEO Nick Holland said that gold had substantial upside and a price of one-thousand-dollars an ounce was eminently achievable in 2009.

Holland said that the gold price increase couldn't have happened at a better time for Gold Fields. The miner was heading for a 15% increase in production in the March quarter, accompanied by lower costs and the possibility of a new sweetener that could make the South Deep project almost self-financing going into 2010.

Holland said the company could now start moving to generating free cash flow.

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Diversified mining group Xstrata is facing an investor backlash over plans to structure a 4,1-billion-pound rights issue in a way that favours its biggest shareholder, Glencore.

On Thursday, Xstrata announced a heavily discounted two-for-one rights issue that would triple the amount of its shares in issue.

The issue was linked to a deal for Xstrata to buy the Prodeco coal mine in Colombia from Glencore for 2-billion-dollars.

Xstrata CEO Mick Davis said that Swiss-based commodities trader Glencore wanted to maintain its 35% stake, so a solution was found so it effectively didn't have to pay cash for it.

Also making headlines:

Angola cancels a diamond conference due to the impact the global financial crisis is having on diamond prices.
State-owned Transnet reopens one coal line to the Richards Bay Coal Terminal after the recent derailment.
Worldwide, miners are losing their jobs as the recession hits demand for metals.
And, Gold Fields decides to ‘go it alone' with uranium.

That's a round up of news making headlines today. For more on these and other stories please visit miningweekly.com.