Marubeni Corp., a Japanese trader that with a partner bought Canada’s Grande Cache Coal Corp. for about $1-billion (U.S.) three years ago, will dispose it for a nominal $1 to a Hong Kong mining investor.

The price of gold, down more than a third in three years, is approaching the tipping point where the mining industry would see a spike in the number of producers reducing output or even shutting down operations.

The Rockefeller Brothers Fund, one of oilman John D. Rockefeller’s financial legacies, intends to immediately sell its oil sands and coal investments, arguing that the industries are two of the world’s most intense source of carbon emissions and that clashes with the charitable foundation’s desire to curb climate change.

A scan of major gold producers’ earnings suggests the cost of mining gold has risen dramatically over the past few years.

The latest battleground for U.S. President Barack Obama’s so-called war on coal isn’t even in the lower 48 states. It’s across the border in British Columbia.

Despite European hostility toward “dirty” oil from Canada, refiners there may look more to Alberta for supply as price differentials and sanctions on Russia whet their appetite.

After years of costly mistakes, the new chief executives of Barrick Gold Corp. and Kinross Gold Corp. have ushered in an era of austerity in the precious metal sector.

Global potash demand has not grown as expected, which is creating a number of issues for the industry.

Gold will surge to new highs this year, a push upward that will cause a big rally in the depressed shares of precious metals miners, says John Hathaway, portfolio manager at New-York based Tocqueville gold fund.

In 2010, a single oil-sands operation run by Suncor Energy released into the atmosphere 28,940 tonnes of volatile organic compounds, 22,210 tonnes of sulphur dioxide and 14,011 tonnes of particulate matter.

Top oil industry executives are asking Ottawa for rules to protect Canadian ownership of major oil sands companies from a flood of foreign investment expected in the sector.

It’s an underwriter’s worst nightmare: you launch a bought deal, making you liable for any unsold shares, and then some shocking news about the company comes out. That exact scenario played out this week for Belo Sun Mining Corp. (TSX:BSX).