Germany to bring half its gold back by 2020

A $40 discount to the global oil price, competition from Bakken shale oil, rising labour costs, pipeline problems and overproduction put in jeopardy billions of dollars of oil sands projects.

Environmental and activist groups in Canada fold up their websites for a day on Monday to protest the government policies that will make it easier to build pipelines to transport oil from Alberta’s enormous oil sands.

The first Canadian mid-market chief financial officer (CFO) survey published today by GE Capital, shows that local metals and mining companies are extremely positive about the current state of the industry, but less optimistic about the state of the world economy.

In my email this past week was a missive from the news-editor of Mining.com. He passed on a letter sent to him for possible publication. I repeat the entire letter below. It has the edge I like. It has the honesty of an old man about to retire: I respect that. It has the frustration of change; and we all know the feeling.

Australia’s Queensland government has snubbed a United Nations report demanding Australia act to protect the Great Barrier Reef.

Coal and nuclear power plants rely heavily on water for cooling, but a warmer climate could reduce the availability of water and limit power output.

When looking for a dominant investment theme the approach I take involves looking at global or big picture conditions.

Friday was a good day to be a gold miner.

Members of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation (ACFN) are publicizing two deformed fish they caught in Lake Athabasca on Wednesday, intimating destruction of fish habitat from oil sands operations up river.