Money and Metals

Bloomberg has the latest metal news. "Gold may decline in London as gains last week that sent the precious metal to its highest in 25 years deterred jewellery buyers in India, the biggest gold consumer, and other Asian countries. 'Demand in India has dried out, and as a whole Asian demand has slowed down,' James Moore, TheBullionDesk.com analyst, said."

"New deposits 'are becoming more difficult to identify and more difficult to turn into mines,' Barrick Gold chairman Peter Munk said. 'Right now demand for political reasons and because of new wealth in India and Russia is strong and supply is difficult.'"

"In SA, the world’s biggest gold producer, a strengthening rand has narrowed margins for mining companies.'

And a South African mining venture covered on this blog had a breakthrough. "Junior miner Simmers and Jack Mines (Simmers, SIM) says a substantial new surface uranium and gold resource has been confirmed at its Buffelsfontein operations. 'All indications are that it is highly workable,' said Simmers' CEO Gordon Miller."

"The resources are contained in 283 million tonnes of relatively homogenous tailings dams and metallurgical test work is currently underway to determine the most cost-effective extraction methods. Based purely on the surface re-treatment opportunity, the initial results indicate a 15-year project life, with the potential to extract 12 million pounds of uranium and 1.3 million ounces of gold."