Strong deep basin activity drove a hike in second quarter production for Paramount Resources Ltd., which reported Wednesday that average sales volumes increased 30 per cent in the period. The Calgary-based intermediate producer’s acquisition of ProspEx Resources Ltd. on May 31, along with new wells, meant a growth of 56 per cent in its sales volumes for the Kaybob division of the company.

Investors who were nervous about the looming debt ceiling showdown poured $3.5 billion in July into exchange-traded funds that own gold, according to fund tracking website IndexUniverse.com. The biggest gold ETF, the $65 billion SPDR Gold Trust managed by State Street, added $2.9 billion of net inflow, IndexUniverse said in its monthly report. BlackRock's $8 billion iShares Gold Trust took in $632 million.

Bloomberg reports demand for diamond jewelry in India may slow as a surge in prices discourages buyers. Polished diamond prices, which jumped about 60 percent to 70 percent in the last six months, may gain further in the next few months, said Sandeep Kulhalli, vice president, retail and marketing at Tanishq, the jewelry retail chain owned by Titan. The company is India’s biggest retailer of gold jewelry.

With not enough new engineers and tradesmen, and a high retirement rate, BC's mining industry is facing a severe shortage of skilled labour, say mine managers and industry reps, Ash-Cache-Journal reports.

It’s a situation that is going to worsen in the years ahead if something isn’t done to raise some interest in the career opportunities right across the board and creating attractive nearby communities in which workers will want to live and raise their families.

There will be a mine and occupational health and safety seminar presented by Brink Cohen Le Roux at the Gallagher Convention Centre on September 7, 2011. For more information, see the announcement from Technews.

Speaking at the Diggers & Dealers conference in Kalgoorlie Australia, Robert Friedland, executive chairman of Ivanhoe mines made big claims for the new mine his company is constructing in Mongolia together with major shareholder Rio Tinto. Oyu Tolgoi is now one third complete and according to Friedland would have a life of more than a century. The mine is on track to produce more than 1.2 billion pounds of copper and 650,000 ounces of gold each year. Oyu Tolgoi will also help turn Mongolia into the world's fastest-growing economy with staggering GDP growth of 35%. Just to make sure no-one has any misconceptions of the grand scale of the project Friedland boasted that Oyu Tolgoi has 14,200 builders, easily overshadowing the largest construction project in the US, the new World Trade Center with only 2,300. And just to top things off he said Ivanhoe is worth at least double the $15.6 billion valuation the market is affording it at the moment.

Platinum and palladium producer Stillwater Mining Co's quarterly profit almost tripled, but the results fell short of Wall Street expectations and the company's stock slipped. Analysts said investors are concerned about Stillwater's plans to diversify by buying Canadian gold and copper miner Peregrine Metals. Since the $450 million deal was announced last month, Stillwater's stock has fallen 37 percent.

Reuters reports central banks of emerging market countries such as Korea and Thailand have added more than $10 billion of gold to their reserves this year in a sign of waning faith in the West's benchmark bonds and currencies like the dollar and the euro. International Monetary Fund data for June on Wednesday showed Thailand bought gold for the second time this year, raising its reserves by nearly 19 tonnes to over 127 tonnes, while Russia bought another 5.85 tonnes, bringing its reserves to 836.7 tonnes, the world's eighth largest official stash of the metal.

Global production of diamonds increased 10.8% in 2010 compared to 2009, and its value soared by 45.2%, as the world economy improved and demand for diamonds restored. The Kimberley Process Certification Scheme, which tracks production and trade of rough diamonds to end trade in conflict diamonds, released on Wednesday the latest annual data, covering 2010. According to the KPCS data, global diamond production in 2010 totaled 133.1 million carats worth $12 billion.