November marked the toughest month yet for iron ore miners after the price sunk to a fresh 5.5-year low of $US68.49 last week.

The drop prompted BC Iron to cut its board down to five members from eight and reduce directors fees as part of an effort to cut cash costs by 5-10%, while Fortescue Metals Group announced late on Friday that it would slash capital expenditure by half to $650 million this financial year.

Atlas Iron, which is the highest cost of the group, has yet to announce any special cost-cutting measures, though the company successfully slashed costs in the September quarter.

Its founder and chairman David Flanagan will speak at the WA Mining Club on Friday.

Unfortunately for Mount Gibson Iron a further slump in the seawall at its Koolan Island operation has halted operations.

The company announced on Friday it would stand down the bulk of the workforce, but is not expected to make an announcement on the overall impact on the operation, jobs and guidance until later this week.

Also this week, Rio Tinto will hold its London investor day, with the focus to be on copper, aluminium and diamonds and minerals after the Sydney seminar featured presentations on coal and iron ore.

OZ Minerals will have a new leader as of Wednesday, with former Rio Tinto executive Andrew Cole set to start as managing director and CEO.

Cole was appointed in September but needed time to relocate to Melbourne from Canada with his family.

On the events front, Mines and Money London kicks off today with over 3000 delegates expected to attend and featuring keynotes from speakers including Blackrock’ Evy Hambro, Vedanta Resources boss Tom Albanese and Ivanhoe Mines founder and chairman Robert Friedland.

Closer to home, around 650 delegates are expected to gather in Adelaide on Friday for the 111th SA Exploration and Mining Conference.

The conference will be opened by SA Minister for Resources and Energy Tom Koutsantonis and feature talks from most of the major miners in the state.

Also this month, Sirius Resources is set to finalise funding and offtake for its Nova nickel project.

The company has shortlisted a preferred offtake partner for nickel and copper and mandated banks for the financing.

Last week, 24 bankers visited Nova as part of the due diligence and the financing is not dependent on the finalisation of the offtake.

Sirius managing director Mark Bennett told journalists on Thursday that the ball was in the other parties’ courts currently and the timing of the offtake deals may depend on Christmas holidays.

Newcrest Mining is expected to release the revised prefeasibility study for its big growth prospect, the Wafi-Golpu project in Papua New Guinea.

Joint venture partner Harmony Gold said in September that capital costs would be “dramatically less” than the $US4.8 billion envisaged in the previous study.

Also due to release a PFS this month is Magnis Resources for its Nachu graphite project in Tanzania.

It comes hot on the heels of the maiden resource of 156 million tonnes at 5.2% graphitic carbon for more than 8Mt of contained graphite released last week.

Copper miner Discovery Metals has been suspended from trading since September after its lenders did not accept the plan for its proposed underground operation at Boseto in Botswana.

The company said on Friday that discussions to resolve the situation were progressing and it expects to announce a “satisfactory outcome” this week.

Discovery said it expects to be able to make an announcement which will lift the suspension before Friday.

In some expected positive news to look out for, Cassini Resources is set to release further results from the Succoth and Babel targets at its West Musgrave project this month.

The company impressed the market last week when it said the first assay from the Succoth target highlighted its potential to be a world-class copper deposit.