Reuters reports China will extend a resource tax – calculated on value rather than volume of production – on domestic sales of crude oil and natural gas from some regions to the whole country and expand the list of taxable resources to coking coal and rare earths from November 1. The move, billed as a way of conserving resources and limiting environmental damage, is part of a long-awaited tax reform that would enrich the coffers of local governments but slash the earnings of resource companies, such as PetroChina Co, China National Petroleum Corp and Baotou Steel Rare Earths by billions of dollars each year. The tax on rare-earth ores will be levied according to a wide range of between yuan 0.4 – 60 per ton and between yuan 8 – 20 a tonne on coking coal.

Ever since Friday's New York Times report saying the US State Department assigned an important environmental impact study of the Keystone XL pipeline to Cardno Entrix, a company with financial ties to the pipeline operator TransCanada, in contravention of federal law, opponents of the project have shifted the focus of their opposition to allegations of conflict of interest and corruption. Two prominent names on the political left and in the green movement Naomi Klein and Bill McKibben put it most bluntly: Obama's plan to transport oil from Canada to the Gulf Coast reeks of cronyism and it is quite possibly the biggest potential scandal of the Obama years. TransCanada officials meanwhile appear to have been caught off guard by the vociferous protests that weeks of Keystone hearings that ended on Friday have elicited, pointing out that TransCanada won approval for a similar pipeline three years ago with little opposition.

The International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes has advised Crystallex International Corp. that proceedings in its $3.8 billion case against Venezuela for nationalizing gold-mining assets has begun. The Toronto-listed company's main asset is its interest in the Las Cristinas gold project located in Bolivar State, Venezuela. Crystallex also holds interests in the Tomi and La Victoria mines in Venezuela and on Friday closed down 70% from its 52-week high. The stock was delisted in from the New York Stock Exchange earlier this year. Toronto-listed Rusoro is the only large producing gold miner operating in Venezuela and the country does not feature in the top 20 global gold producing states.

Fin24 reports South Africa's gold mining industry is under such cost pressure, owing to gold reserves that are too deep to be mined profitably, that within a decade or two this could mean the end of the industry. That's why there is great excitement about a promising new technology which could make deep underground mining possible and ensure the future of the industry. The world's deepest mine is AngloGold Ashanti’s Mponeng, which extends about 4 km (2.5 miles) underground. To be able to mine much deeper than this, where millions of currently inaccessible – or uneconomic – fine ounces of gold lie, would require a breakthrough. Significantly, AngloGold was recently the first group to herald such a breakthrough with an apparently large degree of certainty.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports Australia's Gillard government has opened the week of the crucial vote on carbon tax by revealing that big fuel users such as airlines want to sign on to the scheme, while the coal industry counterattacked with a report estimating that the tax risks the jobs of 21,000 miners. The government's bid to boost the carbon tax comes as a new coal industry-commissioned report says the tax would force the premature closure of 17 per cent of existing black-coal mines in Australia, including 15 in NSW. Today the Australian Coal Association will release the results of an ACIL Tasman consultants study that concludes an estimated 27 per cent of employment in coalmining projects would be under threat with a carbon tax.

The Wall Street Journal reports Mongolia is relaunching talks with international miners on developing the western block of Tavan Tolgoi in the South Gobi desert, the world’s largest deposit of high-quality coking coal used in steelmaking. Mongolia's National Security Council rejected a deal struck with US giant Peabody Energy, China's Shenhua and a Russian-Mongolian consortium mid-September, just two months after they were announced as winners. At the time losing bidders from Brazil, India and South Korea raised serious concerns and Japan went so far as to call the bidding process 'extremely regrettable'. Mongolia still hopes to privatize its Erdenes Tavan Tolgoi coal-mining company which controls the remainder of the 6 billion tonne resource for upwards of $3 billion next year.

News reports on Saturday say Rio Tinto's Zimbabwe subsidiary Murowa Diamonds has ceded 51% of its equity to comply with a new law that requires Zimbabweans to own the majority of foreign companies. Rio Tinto says on its website it has completed a feasibility study and received environmental go-ahead to expand Murowa production 8-fold at a cost of $200 million. Saturday's report cast serious doubts on whether the investment, which requires foreign capital, would now be made. It appeared in recent weeks as if Zimbabwe was soft-pedalling the indigenization laws, but Rio Tinto's capitulation has now put pressure on Impala Platinum, struggling to hold onto its $20 billion worth of reserves in the country.

Tucson Sentinel reports the Painted Desert of northern Arizona holds hundreds of million years of history, from fossils of dinosaur ancestors to ancient Native American dwellings, but Petrified Forest National Park and the land around it also sit on as much as 2.5 billion tons of potash. The US Congress approved expansion in 2004, authorizing the park to purchase land from willing sellers. The park added the first 26,000 acres in September, but that purchase didn’t include the mineral rights because of a lack of funds.The old and new boundaries of the park are over approximately 50% of the Holbrook basin potash deposits and three companies – Passport Potash, American West Potash and HNZ Potash – currently are drilling test holes inside and outside the park to establish the depth and quality of the deposits.

Does gold's precipitous $300 drop in September represent a fundamental market shift? It is hard to argue with this statement: "Global stock markets are volatile, central banks have not regained credibility, inflation is still a concern, and trust in the markets has not been restored. Yet gold continues to fall... Gold has lost its shine."