Since Saturday's execution of four Shi'ite Muslims in Saudi Arabia, hundreds or thousands of the minority sect have marched nightly in protest, and their anger could herald wider unrest.

The execution of one of them, dissident cleric Nimr al-Nimr, caused an international crisis as Shi'ite Iran and its allies responded angrily, but it also caused upset in his home district of Qatif, where many saw his death as unjustified.

"People are angry. And they are surprised, because there were positive signals in the past months that the executions would not take place. People listen to his speeches and there's no direct proof he was being violent," a Qatif community leader said by phone.

The protests in Qatif, an almost entirely Shi'ite district of about a million people in the oil-producing Eastern Province, have been mostly peaceful, though a fatal shooting and gun attacks on armoured security vehicles have also taken place.

Qatif is located near major oil facilities and many of its residents work for the state energy company, Saudi Aramco. Past incidents of unrest have not led to attacks on the oil industry, but a bus used by Aramco to transport employees was torched after a protest on Tuesday night.

Footage of marchers shouting "down with the Al Saud" and other anti-government slogans, corroborated by witnesses contacted by Reuters, is circulating on social media along with video clips showing shots fired at armoured cars.

"I did not hear shooting last night, but I heard it a lot on the two nights before," a resident of Nimr's home village, al-Awamiya, told Reuters by phone. Like others Reuters spoke to in Qatif, he asked that his name be withheld.

Saudi Arabia only permits foreign news media, including Reuters, to visit Qatif if accompanied by government officials, which it says is to ensure journalists' safety.

The security forces believe they can quash any mass protests in Qatif, like those that began during the 2011 Arab Spring when Nimr became a figurehead, or the 1979 uprising inspired by Iran's revolution, analysts say.

Qatif is almost entirely populated by Shi'ites and can be physically isolated by the government. Checkpoints stand at its main street entrances.

"The security forces are very confident. The Shi'ite population is confined in certain places. They are a small minority compared to a big majority. They think they have the capability to control them," said Mustafa Alani, a security analyst with close ties to the Interior Ministry.

Shi'ites have long complained they face entrenched discrimination in a country where the semi-official Wahhabi Sunni school regards their sect's beliefs as heretical. They say they face abuse from Wahhabi clerics, rarely get permits for places of worship and seldom get senior public sector jobs.

Those basic complaints have over the years been aggravated by what Qatif residents call a heavy security hand against their community, accusing the authorities of unfair detentions and punishments, shooting unarmed protesters and torturing suspects.

Reuters has met several Saudi Shi'ites detained after the 2011 protests who said they were repeatedly beaten and deprived of sleep to extract confessions of rioting.

A series of Islamic State attacks in Saudi Arabia since November 2014 has mainly targeted the kingdom's Shi'ites as part of an apparent strategy to leverage the sectarian divide as a way of building support among conservative Sunnis.

Such divisions are easier to aggravate because of the wider struggle between the kingdom and Iran, with many Saudis, and their government, seeing Tehran as using ties with Shi'ites across the Middle East to seek dominance and persecute Sunnis.

"The Iranians and their allies have been pushing and promoting terrorism and recruiting people, inciting and providing weapons and explosives to people, and Nimr al-Nimr was one of them," Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir told Reuters in an interview this week.

During and after the 2011 protests, eight policemen and seven civilians were killed in attacks by Shi'ites that were connected to Iran and carried out by people linked to Nimr, Riyadh says.

Iran denies all those charges and Nimr's family say he advocated peaceful change, took no part in violence and had no links to Tehran.

The police said Nimr was arrested when he fired on them with an assault rifle, injuring two, while trying to prevent the capture of another suspect, the act which most swayed judges to pass the death sentence on him, Alani said.

Nimr and the three other Shi'tes were executed on Saturday along with 43 Sunni al Qaeda convicts.

http://www.reuters.com/article/saudi-security-shiite-idUSL8N14Q2YT20160107

According to a new report by private capital tracker Preqin, fundraising for natural resources investment reached record levels in 2015, with 62 funds raising a total of $63bn. That was up 14% compared to 2014 and edged past 2013’s banner year when more than 111 funds were active in the market.

Investors, perhaps anticipating that valuations are close to bottoming, threw money at closed-end fund managers and limited partners who were able to rake in 113% of what was targeted for the year. 2015 was the third consecutive year target sizes were exceeded.

Only 0.6% of private capital raised in 2015 for natural resource investment is for mining projects–one wind farm fund attracted more than the entire sector



Despite plummeting crude oil and natural gas prices, according to Preqin energy-focused funds were once again the main driver of growth in 2015, accounting for more than $9 out of every $10 raised during the year. The bulk of the cash will be invested in North America.

Mining and metals made up a paltry 0.6% of funds raised (more money were raised for timberland) with just two funds closing on $400 million in 2015. Nearly ten times the amount of money went into investment in agriculture and farmland in 2015.



Source: Preqin

This year 10 metals and mining focused private closed-end funds are hoping to raise $3.6bn, compared to 38 funds in the market targeting $7.7bn for agriculture and farmland investment, mostly outside North America.

Water has now become enough of a focus for private capital that Preqin, which has tracked the industry since 2003, is breaking out the numbers, identifying six funds in the market which want to attract at least $4bn.

The vast majority of funds are once again raising money for energy investments in 2016, but with oil prices reaching fresh 11-year lows in January it will be interesting to see how close the funds active in the sector come to the more than $114bn targeted.

It’s also telling that one of the largest energy-focused funds in the market this year is the Green Investment Bank which is targeting over $1.5bn to build offshore wind farms. In October, the UK-based bank announced it’s more than 80% there with $1.2bn already in the kitty.



Private capital encompasses a range of investment vehicles and strategies including traditional private equity such as buyout, venture capital and turnaround funds, private debt including distressed debt and direct lending, and private real estate, infrastructure and natural resources funds. A total of $550bn were raised by 1,061 funds across all strategies and sectors in 2015 according to Preqin data.

http://www.mining.com/private-capital-wont-touch-mining/

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Anglo American and Glencore led a slump in mining stocks to the lowest in more than a decade as commodity prices tumbled on concern that China’s market turmoil will cut demand for raw materials.

The 80-member Bloomberg World Mining Index dropped as much as 3.8% on Thursday, with Anglo sliding as much as 11% to a record low and Glencore down as much as 7.9% in London. The Bloomberg Commodities Index dropped to its lowest level since 1999 as industrial metals and oil sank.

Investors are shunning metals amid more bad news on the economy in China, the world’s biggest consumer. Chinese stock exchanges halted trading on Thursday for the second time this week after China’s central bank lowered the currency’s daily reference rate by the most since August. Equities have tumbled around the world as the weakening of the yuan fuels fears about the strength of the global economy.

The sharp weakening of the yuan “raises a lot of concerns about how the Chinese economy is tracking and what the central bank there is thinking,” Angus Nicholson, market analyst at IG Markets, said by phone from Melbourne. “The People’s Bank and the big institutions there should have a much better insight than us, and the real concern is that things are worse than what is showing up in the data we see.”

The Bloomberg World Mining Index fell to the lowest since June 2004.

http://www.mineweb.com/news/mining-finance-and-investment/anglo-leads-mining-slump-as-chinas-turmoil-batters-commodities/

China must put "unyielding effort" into eliminating excess industrial capacity to make way for new growth engines, especially mass entrepreneurship and innovation, Premier Li Keqiang has said.

Li made the remarks during the first inspection tour of 2016 on Monday and Tuesday in north China's Shanxi Province, which is known for large coal reserves and output.

After visiting Taiyuan Iron and Steel Group, a world-leading stainless steel producer, Li said the steel sector is suffering badly from excessive production and flagging demand.

"China should put unyielding effort into restructuring by eliminating outdated capacity and forbidding the construction of new capacity," he said.

Companies should take pains in enhancing technology, quality and management to expand the country's effective supply with more quality products, Li said.

In a coal mine of Xishan Coal Electricity Group, Li took a tramcar more than 300 meters underground to talk with miners and check the company's safety conditions.

"The coal mining sector is facing hardship it has rarely seen in the face of a serious glut and plunging prices," he said.

Mines should take the initiative in reducing output while helping laid-off workers find new jobs, according to the premier.

Li also visited a technology park in Taiyuan with more than 200 high-tech companies.

"China has huge market potential and bright prospects; growth impetus from innovation will create new jobs," Li said.

He vowed more government support for entrepreneurs.

The premier then went to a shantytown that will be renovated into apartment buildings this year, urging local governments to lessen people's wait times before moving into the new buildings.

He also urged companies to innovate and take risks, after visiting a museum on ancient Shanxi merchants who played a dominant role in finance and trade during the Ming and Qing dynasties.

http://en.chinamining.com.cn/News/2016-01-06/1452064361d74874.html

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China’s market turmoil is kicking commodities when they’re down.

The central bank on Thursday cut the yuan’s daily reference rate by the most since August, guiding the currency lower amid tepid growth. While that may help stimulate the flagging export sector, it’ll make everything from oil to copper and corn costlier to import into the world’s biggest user of energy, metals and grains. Additionally, more overseas shipments of surplus raw materials such as steel and diesel will add to oversupplied global markets.

Commodities are coming off their worst annual performance since the 2008 global financial crisis, and the latest move by Chinese authorities heightens concerns that the slowdown in Asia’s biggest economy is deeper than anticipated. Weaker demand in the nation have dragged returns from raw materials to the lowest since 1999, after a decade of soaring consumption fueled a so-called supercycle and a boom in prices.

“From China’s perspective, crude and other commodities will get more expensive when the yuan weakens,” Hong Sung Ki, an analyst at Samsung Futures Inc. in Seoul, said by phone. “Being the biggest commodities importer, depreciation of the yuan is a bearish factor in the demand and supply picture as China will cut purchases, which will push down prices.”

The Bloomberg Commodity Index dropped as much as 0.6 percent to 76.1579 by 2:26 p.m. in Singapore, the lowest intraday level since March 1999 for the measure of returns from 22 raw materials.

Market Turmoil

The slump extended to equities, with energy and resources shares tumbling the most on the MSCI Asia Pacific Index. China Coal Energy Co. plunged 8.2 percent in Hong Kong, while Australian explorer Origin Energy Ltd. and miner South32 Ltd. slid more than 7 percent in Sydney. BHP Billiton Ltd. traded 4.8 percent lower.

China’s mainland shares were routed, forcing the world’s second-largest stock market to shut early for the second day this week. An unexpected yuan devaluation in August had also roiled global markets on concern the move would fuel a currency war and exacerbate deflationary pressures in the developed world.

West Texas Intermediate oil futures in New York dropped as much as 3.7 percent to $32.71 a barrel, extending losses from the lowest close in seven years. Brent crude in London lost 3.8 percent to $32.94 a barrel.

Copper on the London Metal Exchange dropped 1.2 percent to $4,565 a metric ton, while nickel slumped 2 percent and zinc declined 2.2 percent. Corn futures in Chicago slipped 0.4 percent as wheat and soybeans fell 0.2 percent.

Investor Panic

Investors are being driven “more by emotion and panic” rather than market fundamentals, according to David Mann, the chief economist for Asia at Standard Chartered Plc in Singapore.

“The main conclusion that people are drawing from this depreciation is that they suspect it’s a last-ditch attempt to support the economy,” Mann said by phone. “That all other options to boost growth are used, and that it must be because things are even worse.”

Amid the turmoil, gold’s status as a haven drew investors to the metal. Spot bullion climbed 0.5 percent to $1,099.23 an ounce, according to Bloomberg generic pricing. It has climbed 3.6 percent this year in the longest run of daily gains since October.

The rout in equity markets is spilling into commodities, said Dominic Schnider, the head of commodities and Asia-Pacific foreign exchange at UBS Group AG’s wealth-management unit in Hong Kong.

Chinese investors have “been living with a strengthening currency for a long, long period of time and now you see weakness and it becomes more clear that the economy will slow, the currency will be weak and a lot of capital likes to leave,” he said. “That leaves the currency vulnerable and a lot of asset classes vulnerable.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-07/turbulence-in-china-punishes-oil-to-copper-as-gold-haven-emerges