THE market spotlight may soon focus on a Chinese stake in the world's fourth largest iron-ore producer, Anglo American, as investors watch how China will respond to BHP Billiton's massive bid for Rio Tinto.

China Development Bank , one of China's richest and most energetic offshore investment companies, told foreign analysts this week that it has taken a stake in Anglo American, rather than Rio Tinto, as had been reported.

So,  BHP looks to the Chinese as it  pursues the Rio Tinto deal and with theOlympics rapidly approaching -

The value of the ore in one bronze medal at the Olympic Games next summer in Beijing? Just $1. A silver medal? $76. Gold? $230. The value of being the first company designated "Official Diversified Minerals and Medals Sponsor of the Games?"

BHP Billiton will soon find out. BHP, the world's largest mining company, is providing all the ore for the 57,000 medals to be awarded at the 29th Olympiad and the Paralympic Games.

Engineers estimate that for that purpose, BHP will be delivering about 13 kilograms, or 28.6 pounds, of pure Chilean gold, more than a metric ton of Australian silver and almost seven tons of copper - also from Chile - to a mint in Shanghai where the metal will be cast and a ring of jade inlaid to forge each medal.

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Stuck in traffic, behind rows of blinking tail-lights as smoked-glassed Chevrolets sweep down the dual carriageways around you, it would be easy to mistake this sprawling desert city, humming with oil wealth, for somewhere altogether different.

But it is here, amid the palms and neon-lit malls, that Opec heads of state are gathering, for only the third time in the organisation’s 47-year history, to ponder not only high oil prices, but also the purpose of the organisation –engineering,  exploration and whether it has a role beyond trying to massage prices by controlling production.

In many ways, this should be a golden age for Opec. With oil prices close to $100 per barrel, surely its 12 member states, which are responsible for 40 per cent of global crude production of 85 million barrels per day, are enjoying an unprecedented boom?

Not so, according to Opec’s general secretary Abdalla Salem el-Badri.

 THE era of "peak gold" has arrived.

Try as they might, mining engineers cannot find enough ore at viable costs to replace their fast-depleting reserves, even if they dig kilometres into the the Earth.

"There's not much gold out there," said Gregory Wilkins, chief executive of the producer Barrick Gold.

"Global mine supply is going to decrease at a much faster rate than people generally believe. Many of the new mines that people are anticipating will never come into production," he told the RBC Capital Markets gold conference in London

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 Oil engineers continue to seek further exploration as --

 The head of Opec raised the stakes in the battle over high oil prices yesterday when he dismissed a call from the US energy secretary for the producers' group to pump more crude into the market.

Abdalla Salem El-Badri, secretary general of the Organistation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, rejected claims that a worldwide crude shortage was behind the rise in price to nearly $100 dollars a barrel, and added that the US itself could do more to ease its problems.

Samuel Bodman, the US energy secretary, had stepped up the pressure on Opec on Tuesday evening, saying that the group's meeting in Riyadh this week should decide to raise production to help reduce the high oil prices that are threatening to stall economic growth.

Whilst China is taking further steps to alleviate the impact of higher fuel costs 

Complexities abound in the natural gas markets with many twists and turns -

 Environmental engineers and polar bears will watch closely as this develops --

 Mining and engineering stories don't get any bigger than this --

BHP Billiton has come under immediate pressure either to increase the $US140 billion ($A151 billion) value of its scrip-only takeover bid for its arch competitor, Rio Tinto, or abandon its ambition to become the global king of the superbly lucrative iron ore export business.

CHINA'S steel industry was less than thrilled to wake up yesterday and find it might soon be wrestling with two giant iron ore suppliers rather than three in the tightest iron ore market the modern world has seen.

MINING giant BHP Billiton is believed to be ready to offer mining assets to key customer China to try to win Beijing's blessing for a proposed $US140 billion ($151 billion) takeover of key Australian rival, Rio Tinto.

 BHP Billiton’s daydream deal is not quite a monopoly, in terms of its control of the Pacific Basin iron ore market, but it is as near as makes no difference.

 Atlantis by name and Atlantis by nature - let the good times (barrel) roll - or so they hope

 Geologists and engineers are in planning phase as the Brazilian government says huge new oil reserves discovered off its coast could turn the country into one of the biggest oil producers in the world.

 Sparking engineers to re asses exploration projects --

 Oil has rocketed to an all-time high of $97 a barrel in New York on fears of terrorist attacks on pipelines in the Middle East and falling crude inventories in the United States.

Nanotechnology could revolutionize the natural gas industry across the whole engineering lifecycle from extraction to pollution reduction or be an enormous missed opportunity, claim two industry experts writing in Inderscience's International Journal of Nanotechnology.

 "Fly me to the moon" is a song which best describes the price of oil - Maybe ??

 As the price of crude hits new highs , Sylvia Pfeifer looks behind the scenes to discover where the market will end up once the speculative froth has washed away

 German engineering and manufacturing company MAN Ferrostaal has launched South Africa's first fabrication yard for oil and gas platforms at Saldanha Bay, enabling the country to take advantage of booming energy operations along Africa's west coast.

 Out there in the wild wild west ,  the mining engineers are having a lot of fun - a bit more than nickel and dime action --

 XSTRATA has made a third attempt to enter the West Australian nickel sector: yesterday it lodged a friendly $3.1 billion cash offer for Jubilee Mines

 Gas to liquid technology is an exciting process and engineering expertise - this could open some doors --