India Gold - Customer Zone - Reuters

SINGAPORE GOLD COMMODITIES ————————-- GOLD GOLD: REBOUNDS HITS WILL RECORD RISK INTERNATIONAL BATTERED AUGUST AVERSION ON HIGH JAPAN 2011 BY ABOVE BANISH DEBT SHARPEST ENERGY $1,622/OZ DOWNGRADE CORRECTION WEEK—SPECIAL LOSS SINCE DESPITE FEARS? MAY PDF CORRECTION FEARS NOVEMBER AUGUST JULY 2010 2011
2011
Panners submerge their pans in moving water to capture sediment, sorting the gold from the gravel and other material. As
gold is much denser than rock, it quickly settles to the bottom of the pan.
MAKING HAY
Australia is the world's second-largest gold producing nation behind China. Its western gold fields are home to more millionaires
per capita then anywhere else in the Southern Hemisphere.
Even a young Herbert Hoover tried his luck in Australia, working as a metallurgist for gold mines in the west before returning to
America and being elected the 31st U.S. president.
AngloGold Ashanti Ltd's Tropicana mine, under development at a cost of $700 million, is the top major Australian gold discovery
of the past decade and is expected to produce about 480,000 ounces of gold a year.
"Now is the time to make hay and the mining companies know it," says Keith Goode, director of Eagle Mining Research in Sydney.
"These things go in cycles."
Integra Mining expects to mine 100,000 ounces of gold this year from virtually nothing a year ago to maximise gold sales at
higher prices.
One of Australia's biggest gold producers, Melbourne-based Newcrest Mining , this week posted a 36 percent rise in underlying
annual profit thanks to higher gold prices. This year, Newcrest Chief Executive Greg Robinson has vowed to dig deeper and produce
up to 2.925 million ounces of gold, up from 2.53 million ounces in the 2011/12financial year.
Even in Australia, regarded as an economy insulated from much of the economic and social turbulence occurring elsewhere,
gold holds more appeal for investors over stocks.
Since August 2006 the gold price in Australian dollars has outpaced the S&P/ASX All Ordinaries Gold index by more than 300
percent.
Investors in droves have sought a refuge in bullion
from a stock market meltdown, fears about sovereign
debts in Europe and the United States and worries
about a recession.
"The world economic and political issues are supporting
a very strong gold price," says Newcrest's
Robinson.
MINERS CHOOSE GOLD
Perth company Emergent Resources has put its
plans to exploit iron ore deposits in the far west outback
on hold to dig for gold.
Another Perth-based company, Norton Gold Fields ,
made a A$13.1 million profit this year after losing
A$32.8 million last year, thanks to strong gold prices,
and now expects even better profits next year as it
turns up production.
"Our balance sheet is much stronger than a year ago
and will continue to improve as we reduce our debt
levels," Norton Managing Director Andre Labuschange
said.
The company still owes about A$65 million under a
hedging arrangement with the now-defunct Lehman
Brothers bank but plans to make a voluntary repayment
next month, bringing the outstanding amount
to about A$50 million, he said
Hedging of gold -- selling ounces to be mined at a
later date for a fixed forward price -- a relic of the
1990's when gold sold for as little as $253 an ounce -
- is now taboo for many mining companies, whose
shareholders want as much exposure as they can get
to any upside in bullion.
Globally, only 5.1 million ounces of gold were hedged
in the first quarter, according to a tally by ABN Amro,
out of forecast production this year of around 76 million
ounces.
Signs for merchants who buy and sell gold, silver and coins hang outside their shops in Paris
August 11, 2011. REUTERS/John Schults
36