Geoffrey Sambrook’s second novel, Czar Rising, charts the rise and fall of Victor Lansky, a property speculator and former copper dealer, who invests in a Russian aluminium smelter at the time that the Soviet Union was falling apart.

Later this month, the world’s largest copper producers, consumers and traders will meet in London to hammer out supply deals for next year, and as always, they will have different ideas about the physical premiums that should be attached to those contracts.

Chinese zinc smelter Yunnan Luoping Zinc & Electricity will supply 25,000 tonnes of zinc to the local government for reserve purchase.

Hotline was interested to hear this week that the world’s first detection dog has been trained in the UK to sniff out forensic markings on stolen metal.

Who’s got the biggest bazooka? Is it Mario or is it Ben?

The temporary increase on import tariffs for several steel products in Brazil should not lead to domestic price readjustments as the federal government will monitor such prices.

The trouble with looking both east and west is that it is hard to focus on one if you are being distracted by the other.

On one side of the world, BHP Billiton decides to scrap a $20 billion copper project, downsizing its prospective portfolio by more than 500,000 tpy in response to weaker conditions in commodities markets and higher costs in the mining industry.

Mongolia should not become too dependent on the "very volatile" industry of mining, its central bank's deputy governor said.

I expect most readers will be able to remember October 2011, although it seems that one person would appear to be hoping that such a span is too much for the memory of speculative investors.