ENERGY

The Environment Protection Agency or EPA has approved a new coal-fired power plant, which will use gas from brown coal and natural gas to produce electricity, in eastern Victoria.

The Australian dollar jumped and recovered its four-day loss as an impact of the Reserve Bank's hint that benchmark rates may soon rise up at some point.

Australia's Reserve Bank has hinted that higher interest rates maybe inevitable to contain the jump in consumer prices, authorities said.

Galena Asset Management Ltd („Galena‟) has restructured the Galena Energy Fund as of January 2011. The Geneva-based Energy Fund was seeded by Trafigura group, the parent company, in April 2009 with 50M$. The group committed another 50M$ early in January 2010.

The higher-than-expected inflation rates in Australia gives the central bank more reason to increase interest rates, analysts said.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard is walking on tight rope as she pursue both trade and diplomacy issues in China as she meets her counterparts Prime Minister Wen Jiabiao and President Hu Jintao today.

Beleagured Japanese firm Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) has announced that it will impose salary cuts of as much as 50 percent on top executives and about 20 percent on staff as it copes with the growing financial woes from its Fukushima Daiichi power plant.

Australia's proposed $230-million rare earths production facility in the Pahang state in Malaysia needs further environmental assessment, the Malaysian government said.

Australia is on track of an unprecedented mining boom, the country's Treasurer Wayne Swan in the Mining Weekly publications.

Australia's natural gas assets are being targeted by China's national oil companies this year, according to energy consultancy firm Wood Mackenzie.

Renewable energy company CBD Energy Ltd's (ASX: CBD) first joint venture project with its new Chinese partners will finalise its very first 100 megawatt wind farm in Australia this week.

BHP Billiton is seeking government approval for a planned expansion of its Port Hedland operations in the Pilbara Region that would would double its current iron ore output in the medium term.

Asian regional markets are mixed in the last hours of trading in Australia, Singapore, and Japan as investors kept a "wait and see" attitude and bearish sentiments spilled from European and U.S. markets.

Australian renewable energy company, CBD Energy (ASX: CBD), has disclosed to the ASX it would finalise its joint venture with two of China's largest renewable energy companies and pursue A$6-billion worth of renewable energy projects in the coming years.

To secure Australia energy supply requirements, the government has declared its largest area for offshore petroleum exploration in more than a decade.

Mining experts are convinced that the global supply deficit could further push copper prices higher until the year 2013 to the benefit of mining companies world-wide, mining experts attending the CRU World Copper conference in Sanitago, Chile said today.

Australia's Rio Tinto Mining Ltd has strengthened its bid obtaining 49.49 percent of all the shares of Riversdale Mining Limited (Riversdale), the company announced late Wednesday.

Singapore Exchange Ltd (SGX) has been informed that there is a big possibility that its proposal to $8.4-billion take over the local Australian bourse will be rejected by Australian Treasurer Wayne Swan.

Dealing with the government and private sector in countries Australia and Singapore were perceived to be the least tainted with corruption, a new survey made by Hong Kong-based Political & Economic Risk Consultancy, Ltd.'s (PERC) latest Asian Intelligence report indicated.

Japanese authorities will distribute bottled water to some 80,000 families dislocated by the earthquake as that tap water may not be safe for drinking in areas near the Fukushima nuclear plant.

Qantas Airways has announced that it would further increase domestic, regional, and trans-Tasman flights for the second time after the forward adjustment made in February due to higher fuel prices.

The Australian Parliament has approved the Commonwealth Government's Flood and Cyclone Levy Bill, which has earmarked some $5.6 billion in funds for the reconstruction of severely damaged townships.

Australia's senator Nick Xenophon has filed a motion today seeking a parliamentary inquiry into the proposed takeover-merger of the ASX Ltd. (ASX) by the Asian bourse Singapore Exchange Ltd.

Pursuing a dangerous tact to quell a nuclear disaster, Japan has used helicopters to cool down the nuclear reactors at the Fukushima nuclear power facility.

The Australian government is keeping its target date in implementing a carbon tax in July 2012 in spite a petition from industry sectors to postpone it.

Australian mining firm Cape Alumina (ASX: CBU) has announced the good results and drilling potential in its Bauxite Hills mines.

Australia's top mining resources firms Rio Tinto and Woodside Petroleum have criticised plans to put a fixed price on carbon emission, without a clear form of compensation or exemption for local businesses and industries.

Sales from Australia's commodity exports are seen growing to $255 billion in the next 12 months to be driven by growing world demand, a report of the Bureau of Agricultural & Resource Economics & Sciences (ABARES) said today.

Sales from Australia's commodity exports are seen growing to $255 billion in the next 12 months to be driven by growing world demand, a report of the Bureau of Agricultural & Resource Economics & Sciences (ABARES) said today.