Eike Batista, a Brazilian mining entrepreneur, says he owes the success of his business, built from scratch and now worth billions, to following the basic rules of mining exploration that he learned as a young man digging for gold. "In mining, you go to some crazy place, you set up a camp, you start looking for water and energy and this way you can build anything," Batista said. "That's the mind-set. That's my life. That's how I learned to build things from zero."