Miners moan over Italian wine

Drowning their sorrows with Italian table wine, the gloomy gathering of the world's metals traders, bankers and mining executives at the London Metal Exchange annual dinner at Grosvenor House provided a prelude to the plunge in mining shares yesterday.

As they all attempted to get used to the spectre of falling metals prices after a five-year boom, LME chief Martin Abbott tried to keep spirits up by remarking on the boost to trading from the shift of deals on the over-the-counter market to public exchanges.

But the impact of the financial crisis was starkly illustrated by the absence of the metals team at Lehman Brothers. The mood was in sharp contrast to that of the buoyant recent London Bullion Association annual meeting held in Kyoto.

José Pablo Arellano of the copper group Codelco led the Chilean contingent at the dinner. Among other mining industry bigwigs spotted were Paul Skinner , chairman of Rio Tinto, tucking into the sea bass on the eve of Rio delivering a poor outlook on China in an operating update. Also there was his stalker, BHP Billiton chief Marius Kloppers .