Cashed up miners likely to step up M&A

Mining merger and acquisition (M&A) activity could pick up in the final quarter of the year, as cashed up companies take advantage of recent declines in valuations, Ernst & Young (EY) said on Wednesday. M&A activity dropped 6% in the first three...

Discard coal IPP targeted for 2015, carbon tax and competitiveness, BHP sees more shale gas bids

Anglo American could emerge with a discard coal power project in eMalahleni; the Australian carbon tax to hurt all exporters; and BHP Billiton may bid for more shale gas.

BHP to buy US shale gas firm Petrohawk for $12bn, sees more deals

Diversified resources group BHP Billiton has made a $12.1-billion play for Petrohawk Energy, giving it access to oil and shale gas assets in Texas and Louisiana. BHP unveiled the $38.75-a-share all-cash deal on Friday, which values the US shale...

BHP Billiton continues as the hardest hat in global mining

Around the turn of the millennium, the bosses of Billiton, then an ambitious South African mining company, sat in the lobby of a big fund manager waiting to talk up their firm’s prospects. At first they were welcomed warmly. But their hosts’...

BHP Billiton enters ‘shale gale’ with Chesapeake buy

Diversified mining major BHP Billiton is taking part in the "shale gale" with its acquistion of Chesapeake Energy Corporation’s interests in the Fayetteville Shale, US, including the midstream pipeline system. Most of the $4,75-billion purchase...

Sasol-Chesapeake-Statoil apply to explore for shale gas in Karoo

South Africa’s Sasol is taking steps to join the global search for shale gas. Shale has for long been considered a rock too difficult to drill, but the breakthrough of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing has opened up shale along with...