Vale is the second-largest mining company in the world that produces a wide range of metals, the largest being iron ore and nickel.

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Brazil's Companhia Vale do Rio Doce (nyse: RIO - news - people ), which mines iron ore, nickel and copper, among other things, has risen seventeenfold since 2003.

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His assets span the iron-ore, coal and nickel industries, all of which have come under pressure from falling prices.

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There was great excitement in the 90s as an Australian company announced that it had a new process, capable of extracting nickel from a new type of ore.

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Citigroup estimates that the spot price is below the production costs for 15% of copper producers, 25% of aluminium producers, 50% of zinc producers, 30% of nickel producers and 10% of iron-ore producers.

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As for individual stocks, there are very few pure platinum plays, as the ore it is mined from also contains nickel and copper.

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Commodities currently mined in the region include nickel, cobalt, platinum group metals, zinc, iron ore, and ilmenite, as well as gold.

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No wonder that Companhia Vale do Rio Doce, a big Brazilian iron-ore producer, is buying Inco, one of the two Canadian nickel firms gobbled up in recent deals.

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While it is also a major producer of nickel, copper and fertilizers, about 90% of its profits come from iron ore.

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