That was the message from Monterey County supervisors to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management over the pending auction of oil and gas exploration leases on about 35,000 acres in South County.

The proposed lease sale, which is part of a 2007 management plan for BLM holdings on the Central Coast and in the Southern Diablo Mountain Range, is scheduled for June 23 in Sacramento.

County supervisors voted unanimously Monday to ask the federal agency to hold off the lease sale for at least three months to give county planners time to weigh the possible impacts.
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Legislation introduced this week that targets hydraulic fracturing — a technique used to access vast new fields for drilling – is pitting the oil and gas industry against environmentalists in a debate over public health, federal versus state regulation and the protection of industry trade secrets.

Here’s what the legislation also will do: deliver massive lobbying firepower to Capitol Hill. In the lead up to the long-anticipated bill, lobbying against the measure was already well underway. In the first quarter of 2009, the American Petroleum Institute spent $1.8 million lobbying for a variety of issues including hydraulic fracturing. Read the rest of this entry »

NovaDX Ventures Corp.’s wholly-owned subsidiary, MCoal Corporation (”MCoal”), reports on its progress on the Rosa Coal Mine Project:

The Alabama Surface Mining Commission (”ASMC”) has finished its completeness review and has accepted for filing MCoal’s mine permit application for the first phase of auger mining at the company’s Rosa Coal Project in Blount County, Alabama.

Neil MacDonald, CEO of NovaDX, commented that, “MCoal has met a significant milestone in the development of the Rosa Coal Project. Together with permit applications we have pending with the Alabama Department of Environmental Management and the Army Corps of Engineers, this milestone completes our permitting applications required for the Rosa Coal Project. We are now advertising our mine plans in the local community and over the next sixty days will be responding to the ASMC with respect to any public comment that may arise. We expect to receive all necessary permits by the end of August and begin mining operations in September.” Read the rest of this entry »

NovaDX Ventures Corp.’s wholly-owned subsidiary, MCoal Corporation (”MCoal”), reports on its progress on the Rosa Coal Mine Project:

The Alabama Surface Mining Commission (”ASMC”) has finished its completeness review and has accepted for filing MCoal’s mine permit application for the first phase of auger mining at the company’s Rosa Coal Project in Blount County, Alabama.

Neil MacDonald, CEO of NovaDX, commented that, “MCoal has met a significant milestone in the development of the Rosa Coal Project. Together with permit applications we have pending with the Alabama Department of Environmental Management and the Army Corps of Engineers, this milestone completes our permitting applications required for the Rosa Coal Project. We are now advertising our mine plans in the local community and over the next sixty days will be responding to the ASMC with respect to any public comment that may arise. We expect to receive all necessary permits by the end of August and begin mining operations in September.” Read the rest of this entry »

The longwall production at the Blacksville No. 2 coal mine has been idled for a seven-week period beginning this week.

And one official said layoffs are possible if demand for coal doesn’t increase.

CONSOL Energy Senior Vice President Tom Hoffman said the decision to slow down production at the mine was a result of the economic slowdown. Because people are using less electricity there is less demand for coal.

Blacksville No. 2 coal mine produces high-Btu bituminous coal, which is also mined at seven other area mines. Read the rest of this entry »

Consol Energy Inc. said it plans to restart longwall production at its Buchanan Mine near Mavisdale, Virginia in mid-July. The company had idled longwall production at the mine, which produces metallurgical coal, in early March to balance supplies with an anticipated reduction in demand from steel producers.

The company said it recently settled with its two largest metallurgical coal customers several issues surrounding existing contractual commitments for coal. As a result, Consol said it anticipates sales through the end of the year will support production volumes of around 240,000 tons per month. Read the rest of this entry »

Yanzhou Coal Mining Co., Ltd., a coal producer based in Yanzhou city of east China’s Shandong Province, has settled 4.29-million-ton coal contracts for power generation at a price of 463.86 yuan/ton, up four percent, or 17.83 yuan, from one year prior.

The move may break the deadlock of coal price negotiation between coal producers and power enterprises in China this year.

Despite the four percent growth, this year’s price equals last year’s level, since added value tax on coal enterprises has been raised from 13 percent to 17 percent as of January 1, 2009.

China’s coal and power enterprises have been negotiating on coal supply and price for months. The five major power generators and China Resources (Holdings) Co., Ltd. insist on a price cut by 50 yuan/ton from last year’s 460 yuan/ton, while coal producers want to raise the price by 80 yuan/ton. Read the rest of this entry »

Klondike Silver Corp. is pleased to announce that a program of underground rehabilitation and subsequent test-mining is under way on the 4755 Level of the Silvana Mine in the historic Sandon Silver Camp of south-central British Columbia.

The Company is the largest landholder in the Slocan Camp, which has produced more than 24 million ounces of silver plus by-product base metals since the late 1800s. The land package includes ten historic mines and a fully permitted 100-tonne-per-day mill.

At the Silvana Mine, Company personnel have identified several small but potentially economically mineable areas beyond the limits of productive former stopes developed in the early 1970s. These areas lie roughly 100 feet (30 metres) or more in elevation above the main 4625 Level adit access. Detailed re-examination of historic records, including assays from diamond drill holes and chip/channel samples, show the possibility of mineralized areas amenable to small-scale mining using best-practice grade control to achieve desired economic returns. Read the rest of this entry »

Benton Resources Corp is pleased to release to following updates on the Company’s projects.

Benton and Golden Harp Resources Inc. have started the first phase of exploration on the Block A option ground located 30 km west of Gowganda, Ontario. A seven hole, 1625 meter drill program has recently been completed to verify historical gold mineralization as well as test the down dip and southeast strike extension of the Cook Zone. The Cook Zone, first discovered in the 1930’s, is hosted within silicified and carbonate altered mafic and ultramafic volcanic rocks that have been intruded by altered felsic porphyry dykes. The zone has been subject to several past diamond drilling campaigns that have intersected significant gold mineralization from several sub-parallel zones. Some of the better down hole drill intersections include 54.2 gpt Au (gram per tonne gold) over 4.0m (metres) in hole B-04 and 5.71 gpt Au over 4.6m in hole B-06 drilled in 1952 by Bessey Mining Syndicate; 5.4 gpt Au over 7.6m (hole T-14) drilled in 1953 by Tenendo Mining; 10.6 gpt Au over 3.1m (hole ORC-01) drilled by Orcana in the 1980’s; and 2.7 gpt Au over 13m (KC-12) drilled by KRL Resources in 1995. In addition to the diamond drill program, a 41 km grid has been established and ground geophysics, mapping, soil sampling and prospecting are planned. The new grid extends southeast from the Cook Zone through to the MC Zone discovered by Golden Harp in 2008. The MC Zone, located 1.3 km east southeast of the Cook Zone, is hosted in a thick package of pyritic, green carbonate, albite and hematite altered ultramafic and mafic volcanic rocks. To date five holes have tested the MC Zone over a strike length of 220m. Read the rest of this entry »

Timberline Resources Corporation today provides a permitting update for its Butte Highlands Gold Project in southwestern Montana.

As recently announced, Timberline filed its Underground Exploration Plan with Montana’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) and has received review comments from the MT DEQ on the plan. In general, the review letter indicates that “the proposal and appendices are generally adequate and give detailed information on the many aspects of the project” and outlines the items for further comment by Timberline.

Paul Dircksen, Timberline VP Exploration stated, “Our geologic staff and Klepfer Mining Services, LLC have reviewed the MT DEQ questions and find them well defined and reasonable in nature. We are currently addressing all items and plan to submit our reply promptly next week. There do not appear to be any unexpected impediments to our permitting process, and the project remains on schedule.” Read the rest of this entry »