The base metals were all leaking red on Tuesday. Outside of a brief morning blip up, copper declined from the pre-dawn hours straight through, finishing at its intraday low of $1.4256/lb., down 11 cents from Friday. Pretty much the same story for nickel, which closed at its intraday low of $4.4006/lb., down more than 20 cents.

The base metals were mixed again on Thursday. Copper fell from the pre-dawn hours to just after the New York open, and though it rallied from there, failed to reach the green at $1.4432/lb., down 3 cents.

Nathan Tinkler is a pawn in the strategic chess match for Australia’s resource wealth. But he’s a pawn as rich as a king. And he owes it all to coal.

Yesterday’s big bid by British Gas for Origin Energy puts coal seam methane (firmly in the spotlight). Recently we published a map showing Queensland’s coal properties, including the location of coal seam methane projects in the Surat Basin.

With Earth Day creating a lot of buzz about green energy and technology, people are desperately looking for a cheap and effective way to produce green energy. Byron King has a theory that the more expensive dirty energy resources get, the cheaper green energy will look by comparison.