Frontier Rare Earths, a junior Canadian company headquartered in Toronto, and Korea Resources Corp. (Kores) have signed a definitive agreement to form a joint venture to accelerate development of Frontier’s Zandkopsdrift rare earth project in South Africa’s Northern Cape province. In conjunction with the signing, Kores said it will form a consortium of several leading Korean companies to join the joint venture, including Samsung Group, Hyundai Motors Group, GS Group, Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Group, and AJU Group.

Semafo reported November 7 the signing of a letter of intern (LoI) with Dumas Contracting for development of the Mana underground project at Semafo’s Mana operations in Burkina Faso. The LoI outlines the scope of work and responsibilities to be carried out by Dumas during an interim period leading to execution of a definitive agreement.

Allana Potash, a Canadian company headquartered in Toronto, has reported the results of an independent preliminary economic assessment (PEA) for its Danakhil potash project in northeastern Ethiopia. The PEA is based on commercial operations that would produce 1 million mt/y of standard muriate of potash over an initial estimated operating life of 30 years.

Banro Corp. reports it poured the first gold at its new Twangiza mine in South Kivu province, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in early October 2011. The Twangiza oxide plant will process the oxide portion of the Twangiza orebody. Production will ramp up during the fourth quarter of 2011 and is scheduled to achieve an annual rate of 120,000 oz/y of gold in 2012.

Rio Tinto and Anglo American informed the board of directors of Palabora Mining Co. in early September 2011 that they intend to divest their respective 57.7% and 16.8% interests in Palabora. Rio Tinto initiated a commercial process to sell its shareholding and Anglo American is participating in the process.