MINING.COM Staff Writer

CanadaViews reports Saskatchewan NDP Leader Dwain Lingenfelter announced Thursday an NDP government would create the Bright Futures Fund, modelled on oil and gas revenue funds in Alaska and Norway. The fund will dedicate a portion of Saskatchewans non-renewable resource royalties to invest for the future. This fund would be independently managed, and the government would not be allowed to withdraw money to cover short-term deficits and day-to-day spending. Lingenfelter said that the Sask Party has seen over $10 billion dollars in non-renewable resource revenue flow through their hands and spent on one-time projects or to cover budget deficits.

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.

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.

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.