China planning to step up controls on coal imports — report

Alberta Oil Magazine takes an in-depth look at infrastructure challenges that persist for Fort McMurray, the centre of Canada's oil sands industry, in the middle of a global bonanza.

Claymore Silver Bullion Trust has filed a final short form prospectus in connection with a follow-on offering of hedged trust units, Toronto-based Claymore Investments, Inc. said Wednesday. The hedged units will provide investors with an exposure to physical silver bullion with substantially all of the U.S. dollar currency exposure hedged back to the Canadian dollar. The maximum amount of the offering is $75,000,600 million, or 2,907,000 hedged units, priced at $25.80 per unit.

Crossland Uranium Mines (ASX:CUX) plans to issue a report next month on an illuvial heavy mineral rare earth element resource at its 50% owned Charley Creek project in Northern Territory. A 16.7 tonne quantity of alluvial material has been obtained from the Cockroach prospect for testwork to investigate a heavy mineral process flowsheet and to generate samples of heavy mineral product for initial marketing and additional process development tests. Crossland says that the Charley Creek alluvials should be low cost sources of heavy mineral concentrates with high concentrations of REE and/or zircon.

Glencore International plc (LON:GLEN), seeking access to the growing coal market in India and China, announced on Thursday an estimated $1 billion plan to acquire Optimum Coal Holdings (JNB:OPT), a significant thermal coal producer in South Africa. Glencore will value the ordinary shares of Optimum at 34 ZAR (4.8 USD), a 35% premium over the 30-day volume weighted average. “Optimum’s high quality, long life coal assets and significant presence at Richards Bay Coal Terminal would be an attractive addition to our existing South African coal business," said Tor Peterson, director of the Coal/Coke commodity department.

Cameco (NYSE:CCJ) announced on Wednesday that it signed signed a memorandum of agreement with its partner, Kazatomprom, to increase annual uranium production at the Joint Venture Inkai Limited Liability Partnership (JVI) from 3.9 million pounds to 5.2 million pounds. The Inkai in-situ recovery uranium mine and processing plant is located in central Kazakhstan and is operated by JVI, 60% owned by Cameco and 40% owned by Kazatomprom, the Kazakhstan government owned national atomic company. Under the memorandum of agreement, Cameco's share of Inkai's annual production will be 2.9 million pounds with the processing plant at full capacity.

NHK World reported that Japanese researchers have created a new design for wind turbines that doubles and even triples the power of conventional models. The wind lense turbines, currently operating at Kyushu University, were developed by Professor Yuji Ohya at the university's Research Institute for Applied Mechanics. A lense fits around the outside of the blades which creates a low pressure region beyond the blades and causes the wind to surge through the turbine increasing the the blades speed and the power generated.

A cashed-up BHP Billiton will spend $US367 million ($A344.31 million) expanding its coal handling operations in Newcastle. The world's biggest miner, which recently delivered an Australian record full-year profit of $22.46 billion, announced on Wednesday the third stage of development of the Newcastle Coal Infrastructure Groups (NCIG) facility.

Al Gore's latest blog entry reads: The leaders of the top environmental groups in the country, the Republican Governor of Nebraska, and millions of people around the country – including hundreds of people who have bravely participated in civil disobedience at the White House – all agree on one thing: President Obama should block a planned pipeline from the tar sands of Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico. The tar sands are the dirtiest source of fuel on the planet...

Actress Daryl Hannah was arrested Tuesday during a sit-in in front of the White House protesting a pipeline expansion project that would significantly increase the amount of oil the United States imports from Canada’s controversial Alberta oil sands. Image from Вени Марковски