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By Leia Michele Toovey- Exclusive to Moly Investing News

Molybdenum miners may dramatically slash output in an effort to coax a rebound in the price of the alloying metal, priming the industry for a rapid price ascent when stainless steel demand rebounds.

After maintaining its price point through the beginning months of the recession, the metal took a dive late in the third quarter of ’08.  Despite renewed economic conditions in the first quarter translating to a rebound for most of the metals, moly has yet to show any signs of an advance. This has prompted miners to curb the metals output.  Last week, Erdene Resource Development Corp announced it would also aggressively curtail production

China’s molybdenum market remained quiet this week with slim trading at US $220-227 per mtu for concentrate, down $7.00 per mtu from last week. “Offers from most producers remained above US$227 per mtu, but some traders sold as low as US$220 per mtu,” said a producer in Luoyang city.

Company news                                                 

Quadra Mining Ltd has closed its offering of 18,630,000 common shares, which includes the common shares issued by the company pursuant to an over allotment option exercised by the underwriters, at a price of CDN $4.65 per share for total gross proceeds of CDN $86,629,500.

Norsemont Mining Inc. (TSX:NOM) announced that the company has closed its previously announced private placement of 6,365,706 Units at a price of C$1.60 per Unit, and a $3.8 million unsecured convertible promissory note, raising gross proceeds of C$13,983,530. The securities issued under the private placement are subject to a four month hold period. The proceeds from the private placement will be used to complete acquisition obligations, to support continued exploration and development of the Constancia project and for general working capital purposes.

Vancouver’s Avanti Mining says the updated resource estimates for its Kitsault moly project are 54 million tonnes at 0.112 per cent Mo in the measured category, 153 million tonnes at 0.088 per cent Mo in the indicated category, and 26 million tonnes grading 0.069 per cent Mo in the inferred category (at a cutoff grade of 0.04 per cent Mo). The original resource estimate was released in November 2008, and called for a total of 190 million tonnes of resources at 0.096 per cent Mo to be mined over 15 years. Commenting on the results, Craig J. Nelsen, Avanti president and CEO, stated, “This new resource statement resulted in an increase of 24 per cent of contained molybdenum in the measured and indicated classification over our previous resource model. Most of this increase was the result of conversion of previously classified inferred resource to indicate and refinement of the geologic model. When compared to the resource used in our preliminary economic assessment, the changes were insignificant except for the upgraded classification. This new resource statement will be used in the preliminary feasibility study which is currently underway.”

China’s second largest nickel producer Jilin HOROC Nonferrous Metal Group Ltd (Jilin) may indirectly increase its reserves of molybdenum and tungsten Jilin increased its stake in junior minerals explorer Metallica Minerals Ltd., and is now the company’s largest shareholder. In turn, Metallica recently made a $2.3 million all-scrip offer for molybdenum and tungsten miner Queensland Ores Ltd (QOL). Metallica says the target’s board intends to accept the offer in the absence of a better bid.

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