- Vale's minimum exploration commitment under the agreement is US $2M to be spent prior to August 31, 2009. Vale has the right to acquire up to a 60% interest in the mineral exploration licenses for Suwar and Wadi Qutabah through a series of progressive expenditure and activity thresholds.

Other headlines for [RIO]

• Today 09:17am
  Morgan Stanley analysts note that commodity rally will not be sustainable through Q1 of 2009
  
• AA Yesterday 04:07pm
  Alcoa Inc Cutting smelting output 18%, cutting 13.5K jobs (about 13% of workforce), freezing salaries, selling certain downstream businesses; expects Q4 charges of $900-950M ($1.13-1.19/shr)- Further smelting more...
  
• 12/31/2008 00:53am
  Guinean Coup Officers note that existing mining contracts will be re-evaluated - WSJ- Remains unclear if any terms or conditions will be changed with existing contracts - Guinean production of more...
  
• BHP.AU 12/17/2008 04:46pm
  BHP Billiton Ltd Chairman Letter: Company in a strong financial position; High uncertainty in commodities markets- The company has net debt ot $6.3B at Oct 31. - Says it has been able to maintain sales volumes. - more...
  
• 12/17/2008 07:43am
  (CH) Chinese steel industry looking for substantial ore price cuts in annual contracts - WSJ- Article notes that for first time since 2002, steel producers have an economic advantage over basic more...
  

Materials sector headlines

• ZOLT Today 10:53am
  Zoltek Companies, Inc Hearing shares cut to Accumulate from Buy at ThinkPanmure (timing uncertain)
  
• APD Today 10:14am
  Air Products and Chemicals Inc Will extend their 10-year production joint venture with Showa Denko- JV for etch and chamber cleaning products such as tetrafluoromethane (CF4) and hexafluoroethane (C2F6); to build a new production more...
  
• MON Today 10:03am
  Monsanto Co BofA/Merrill Lynch maintains buy rating, price target $115
  
• MON Today 09:53am
  Monsanto Co Spokesperson: Firm is challenged by 'excessive discounting' and remians focused on margin levels -conf call
  
• Today 09:33am
  Energy and metals at session lows in early NY trading helping USD recover - dealers- NYMEX Feb Crude off $1.05 at $47.53/barrel - Spot gold off $10 at $854/oz - Spot Silver lower by 32 cents at more...