Although Mr Dlamini will not have operational oversight of the mining businesses in South Africa, which range from platinum to coal, he will have a seat on the group's executive committee in London.

ECONOMIST: Face value

In Asia, China's Shanghai Composite Index climbed 1.4% as hopes of increased government spending on a wide range of investment projects lifted coal and construction companies.

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The company owns and operates a fleet of 29 dry bulk carriers that transport a wide range of commodities, including coal, iron ore, grains, bauxite, phosphate, fertilizers and steel products.

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The group now has interests across a range of commodities from nickel, coal to gold.

FORBES: South Africa's New Richest Man

Pick the right combination of ions to make your solvent and it is possible to dissolve coal, a wide range of plastics, many metals and even some rocks.

ECONOMIST: Ionic solvent

The 50mw plants will be situated near the Salt Range, a 100-mile coal belt that runs east to west and is midway between Lahore and Islamabad, while the 200mw plant will be in southern Punjab in Dera Ghazi Khan.

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Furthermore, the company is involved in such a range of energy technologies (including dirty coal plants, nuclear generators, natural-gas turbines and wind) that it does not need carbon regulations in the way, say, a narrowly focused fuel-cell or solar-cell maker might.

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Mining companies are running into a situation similar to 2007-2008 when a wide range of producers such as gold, copper, coal and iron ore are all trying to develop projects simultaneously, Tankard pointed out.

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Rizk and Machol found a similarly wide range for the valuations for health impacts by fuel type: 19 to 45 cents per kilowatt-hour for coal, 8 to 19 cents per kilowatt-hour for oil, and 1 to 2 cents per kilowatt-hour for natural gas.

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