Frik Els , Editor

This is what happens when you corner a market the way China has done with rare earth elements: Statistics collected in Hong Kong show exports of rare earth metals have shrunk by half over the past year. Over the same period, the value of these exports jumped 10-fold. It’s hard to argue with these kinds of numbers. After the stocks prices of the few big players pulled back from recent highs investors saw it not as evidence of sobriety returning to the market, but simply as a buying opportunity.

Daily Oil Bulletin reports Canada's total proved oil and liquids reserves continued to climb in 2010, rising to just under 22bn barrels, up 6.6% from year end 2009. About 77% of the booked reserves came from Alberta's oil sands. The news comes as Canada’s oil sands are coming under increased scrutiny: the Vancouver Sun reported on Monday that the federal government deliberately excluded data indicating a 20% increase in annual pollution from the oil sands industry in a report to the UN. Last week during Congressional hearings it was revealed that the oils sands are poised to become the number one source of crude for the US.

The global copper-mining industry needs to expand to new regions if producers are to bring supply back into line with unprecedented demand, according to a mining- studies group in Chile, the world’s largest producer. So far, the industry’s reaction to record prices has been slow because of declining ore grades, the need for deeper mines and higher costs, Juan Carlos Guajardo, executive director of the Center for Copper & Mining Studies, said. Copper futures in London surged to an all-time high in February.

Bloomberg reports that China National Gold Group Corp., the state-owned company that controls the nation’s largest gold deposits, wants to invest in projects in Africa as it expects bullion to trade near record levels for the next three years. Gold jumped to a record $1,577.57 an ounce this month, helping make this year among the busiest for gold deals since 2006. Citic Group, China’s biggest state-owned investment company, and partners agreed this month to buy Gold One International for about $469m to gain assets in South Africa.

Real estate magnate Lev Leviev has sold his 18% stake in Angola's Catoca diamond mine to China's Sonangol International for $400 million, Russia's "Kommersant" newspaper reports. Leviev acquired the stake in the Angola mine in the 1990s for $20m. Russia's state owned diamond producer Alrosa holds 32.8% of Catoca. Last week Alrosa provided a rare glimpse into its finances and operations ahead of a possible public offering. The state-owned company supplies about a quarter of the world’s diamonds and in 2010 produced more of the precious stones than De Beers, historically the dominant miner and marketer of the gems.

Engineering work has begun at a coal-fired power station on the banks of the Thames in England, UK that could turn it into the world's largest biomass plant with almost no carbon emissions. The owner of the Tilbury power station, previously scheduled for shut down in 2015 under new EU environmental regulations, says it hopes to produce up to 750 megawatts of green power by winter. Last week it was reported that the approval of new rules for air pollution, water pollution, and waste disposal in the US could result in the retirement of between 35 and 70 gigawatts (GW) of coal-fired power generation throughout that country.

In a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange on Friday, Tata Chemicals said that its subsidiary Valley Holdings has bought a 32.9% stake in EPM Mining Ventures, which is the process of developing a potash prospect in Sevier Lake, Utah. According to the Financial Post talks between India and producers at the International Fertilizer Industry Association's annual conference in Montreal broke down on Friday. At some 7m tonnes/year India is the second largest importer of potash in the world and is asking for a 10% discount on the current price of $500/tonne.

According to the report in the newspaper senior bureaucrats have told the federal government that the controversial pipeline that would stretch for 1,170km from Brudenheim in Alberta to a new marine terminal at Kitimat in northern British Columbia, offers export capacity that the industry does not need. Last week Stephen Wuori, Enbridge’s president for Liquids Pipelines, vigorously defended the project saying that given that currently 99% of Canada’s $50bn/year exports went to the US, the industry needs to diversify and supply the energy-hungry economies of the Pacific Rim.

BusinessDay reports on Friday the global platinum surplus may jump eightfold to as much as five tons after Japan’s worst earthquake slashed car production, reducing the country’s demand for the metal used in cars’ emission systems to the lowest level in 28 years. Earlier Mining Weekly reported that world number two platinum producer Impala Platinum has shelved plans to increase production at its underperforming 73%-owned Marula mine leading to lay-offs at the company’s largest development project in South Africa.

Green Century Capital Management filed a shareholder resolution with ExxonMobil to disclose information about its investments in Canadian oil sands, Triple Pundit reported on Thursday. By the end of last year, ExxonMobil’s total proved reserves in the oil sands were over 2.78bn barrels — just over 11% of the company’s total proved reserves, according to a press release by Green Century. Canada’s oil sands which is expected to become the primary source of crude to the US have attracted intense scrutiny in recent days as the US Congress heard submissions about the extension of the Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta to Texas.