Canada’s Ontario the slowest to issue exploration permits — report

Why? For mining the stuff for making China.

Intrepid Potash (NYSE:IPI) was up 2% today on news that its solution mining project near Carlsbad, New Mexico has been approved by the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

EU regulators are stepping up scrutiny of the mooted $90 billion merger of the commodities trader and coal giant and the whole vetting process could take until early 2013. That is if the deal goes ahead at all.

("Allana" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has intersected two zones of strong potash mineralization in Holes DK-11-32, DK-11-33, and DK-11-34 ("Holes 32, 33,and 34"). All Holes are located southeast of the Musley Deposit, an area targeted to test the extension of the Sylvinite Zone into a gap in the previous drilling pattern.

MarketWatch quotes  Nomura economist Zhiwei Zhang as saying:  "Overall, economic conditions are getting weaker at a fast pace. The slowdown is happening faster than the government expected."

ATCO announced on Monday that it has been awarded a multimillion-dollar contract to design, build and operate a 2,586-person turnkey workforce housing lodge for BHP Billiton’s Jansen Potash Project, 100 km north of Regina.

The mining sector's bellwether companies were all beaten down on Monday after China's premier Wen Jiabao delivered a downbeat outlook for the world's second largest economy adding that there were "new problems" to deal with.

A new survey by The Economist Intelligence Unit finds when institutional investors interested in frontier markets were asked to choose two regions out of five, two-thirds see Africa – projected to be the fastest growing region on the planet this year – as holding the greatest opportunity.

Potashcorp, the world's number one producer of the soil nutrient, also expects balanced or tight supply for the next four years.