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Friday, July 31, 2009.

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

Making headlines today:

Xstrata-pursued Anglo American's earnings for the first half of the year fell by 68,5% and operating profit fell by 66% with the company expecting demand for its products to remain soft in the near term.

CEO Cynthia Carroll said that Anglo American had made significant progress towards its 2-billion-dollar cost-cutting target and procurement initiatives. The company delivered more than 45-million-dollars in the first half of the year with the expectation of more than 1-billion-dollars for the full year 2009.

The resumption of the payment of a dividend to shareholders remained a key priority for the board.

First-half underlying earnings were 1,1-billion-dollars, which was down 68,5% from the first half of 2008. Operating profit of 2,1-billion-dollars was down 66%, owing to a significant decline in realised prices and lower global demand.

US gold major Barrick Gold has reported that the company is making headway in cutting costs.

Gold miners around the world have battled rising prices for fuel, equipment and labour over the last few years, which have served to erode the benefits of historically high bullion prices.

Taxes and royalties have also increased in step with metals prices.

said the company expects to see costs trending downwards from now.

CEO Aaron Regent confirmed that the company had yet to provide firm cost guidance for 2010, but the general expectation was that the trend would be downwards.

Also making headlines:

Copper hits a 10-month peak on economic optimism.
AngloGold Ashanti reports an increase in its second quarter output.
Xstrata CEO visits South Africa for a second time.
And, China vows that it will have a 'reasonable' result in iron-ore talks.

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