INFOGRAPHIC: Data shows investing is heavily biased by Geography

Canadian Natural Resources said on Tuesday its Horizon oil sands operation has resumed production after a seven month gap caused by a fire. The Calgary-based company said expects to reach full capacity of 110,000 barrels per day of syncrude – a light oil manufactured from bitumen – by next week. The Horizon outage led to a shortage of syncrude which helped Alberta’s producers attract a premium of $18 above benchmark US oil. That premium is now shrinking and is set to return to normal levels of a slight discount. Last week the spread between US crude and North Sea Brent reached a record margin of $26 a barrel. Western Canada Select in turn trades at $13 a barrel below US levels which on Tuesday was $84 a barrel.

Standard & Poor's has kept its BBB- long term corporate credit and ruAA+ Russia national scale ratings on Russian mining and metal group MMC Norilsk Nickel on CreditWatch with negative implications.

World crude steel production for the 64 countries reporting to the World Steel Association was 127 million tonnes in July 2011. This is 11.5% YoY higher than July 2010.

Mining giant BHP Billiton has defended as "effective" its strict office etiquette policy, which bans workers from eating pungent food, throwing jackets on their chairs or leaving Post-it notes on their monitors or keyboards after hours. The company outlined its "Office Environment Standard" in a memo emailed to employees in Brisbane this month.

US coal exports increased 35% to 53.6 million short tons through June 2011, according to a recent edition of NMA’s (National Mining Association) International Coal Review. Strong demand from Asia and Europe for steam and metallurgical coal is expected to push coal exports above 100 million tons by the year’s end, the highest level in nearly 20 years. NMA’s economic forecast prepared in May predicted 2011 coal exports would reach 101.5 million tons (up 24%).

Sensidyne, LP, a leading manufacturer and supplier of industrial health and safety equipment, releases the CDEM-1000 for sale. The Sensidyne CDEM-1000 Coal Dust Explosibility Meter is a portable, handheld, easy-to-use instrument, designed to provide a direct indication of the potential explosibility of a coal and rock dust mixture in accordance with Title 30, Code of Federal Regulations, Part 75.403.

Lawyers for Swiss mining giant Xstrata are in court today defending a massive coal project slated for Queensland. The AU$6 billion Wandoan coal mine has come under fire by environmentalists for its potential negative effects on the Great Barrier Reef. Bloomberg reports that Friends of the Earth, an international environmental lobby group, is attempting to block the mine’s approval at a trial in Brisbane that’s scheduled to take two weeks, arguing the coal exported from the project and burned overseas will add to global warming.

Four of the five trade unions of mining major have placed their wage demand with the management.

Gold prices retreated from early record highs near $1,900 an ounce on Monday, as a rebound in stock markets from last week's lows gathered pace, denting interest in so-called safe haven assets like German bunds and bullion.