Reuters reports US lawmakers approved legislation late on Tuesday setting a November 1 deadline for the Obama administration to decide the fate of a proposed $7 billion pipeline to transport Canadian oil sands crude to refineries on the Gulf coast and ease the glut in the Midwest hub. The price oil sands producers can charge for exports to the US is falling further behind the international benchmark because of the lack of pipelines and hedge funds have started to bet that the spread could go as high as $50/barrel leaving Alberta producers $75 million out of pocket per day.

FLSmidth has been awarded a contract worth approximately EUR 25m (approximately DKK 180m) by Jhabua Power Ltd. for the supply and installation of the first phase of a 1,800 tons per hour coal handling plant for their upcoming power plant project at Jhabua in the state of Madhya Pradesh in central India.

Australia's Highlands Pacific and China Metallurgical Group can now power on their $1.5 billion Ramu nickel project in Papua New Guinea after a judge threw out the environmental challenge to the project's planned deep-sea disposal of tailings after an 18-month legal battle. Ramu is situated on Papua New Guinea's north-west coast and is completely built – annual production is estimated at more than 31,000 tonnes of nickel and 3,300 tonnes of cobalt for over 20 years.

The race to mine the seafloor took another step forward today. Diamond Fields International said it has completed the world's first NI 43-101 compliant resource estimate for its Atlantis II sea-floor deposit, located about 115 kilometres from Jeddah in the Red Sea. DFI has been exploring the deposit with joint venture partner Manafa International.

In an interview with Moneyweb on Tuesday, De Beers Chief Commercial Officer said the company had experienced its best six months since it went private in a $19 billion deal with parent Anglo-American in 2001. Bruce Cleaver said the stellar results that saw net income tripling had been driven not only by "enormously strong" consumer demand in China, Hong Kong, Macau, India and the Gulf states but "surprisingly" strong growth in America, where sales had been anaemic over the last few years.

African Barrick Gold reported net income of $120 million, a 21% increase over H1 in 2010. The EPS was 29.3 cents. The EBITDA was $245 million, up 25%, and operational cash flow was $186 million, an increase of 18% on H1 2010. Cash costs for gold climbed 24% to $655 per ounce due to cost inflation and North Mara mine sequencing.

Cenovus generated cash flow of $939 million or $1.24 per share diluted in the second quarter of 2011. Refining operating cash flow was $322 million during the quarter mainly due to improved refined product prices and higher throughput.

Patriot Coal Corporation (NYSE: PCX) today reported its financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2011. For the 2011 second quarter, the Company reported record revenues of $632.2 million and record EBITDA of $70.2 million. Revenues and EBITDA for the year-ago quarter were $539.0 million and $40.6 million, respectively. For the six months ended June 30, 2011, the Company reported revenues of $1.2 billion and EBITDA of $118.8 million. Revenues and EBITDA for the first half of 2010 were $1.0 billion and $85.8 million, respectively.

South African gold miners will this week join thousands of workers seeking pay rises in widening nationwide strikes, threatening to hurt exports from Africa's largest economy at a time when bullion is at record highs.