December futures trading on the CME briefly hit $2801.70 an ounce, topping the all-time high set last week, in overnight trade.

The rally comes despite rising bond yields and a stronger US dollar, which usually would have weighed on the precious metal. This brings bullion’s year-to-date gain to approximately 34%, making it one of the best-performing assets of 2024.

“Market positioning is elevated ahead of the election but also in anticipation of further Fed rate cuts and broader market and geopolitical uncertainty,” Standard Chartered Plc analyst Suki Cooper said in a note quoted by Bloomberg.

“Under a Trump-win scenario, markets are focused on the implications of wider tariffs, as well as inflationary pressures as a result of such tariffs.”

“Gold trades up on the week, despite deflating risk premiums elsewhere, confirming the focus remains the US election and especially the prospect of a Trump 2.0,” Saxo Bank said in a note to Bloomberg.

“It may bring greater policy disruption, trade tariffs and increased geopolitical risks.”

Global gold demand swelled about 5% in the third quarter, setting a record for the period and lifting consumption above $100 billion for the first time, according to the World Gold Council. The increase — which saw volumes climb to 1,313 tons — was underpinned by stronger investment flows from the West, including more high-net-worth individuals. 

Gold’s rally also follows new economic data released Tuesday that showed US job openings fell far more than expected while consumer confidence rose above all estimates. Investors now await more data later this week to further gauge the Federal Reserve’s stance on interest rates.

Markets are currently pricing in an almost 100% chance for a 25-basis-point rate cut by the US central bank in November.

“Gold should retain its upward bias and may even flirt with $2,800 in the days ahead, as long as US election risks continue weighing on market sentiment, while Fed rate cut expectations remain intact,” said Han Tan, chief market analyst at Exinity Group, on Tuesday.

(With files from Bloomberg and Reuters)

The increase — which saw volumes climb to 1,313 tons — was underpinned by stronger investment flows from the West, including more high-net-worth individuals, that helped offset waning appetite from Asia, the industry-funded group said in a report on Wednesday. Buying in bullion-backed exchange-traded funds flipped to gains in the quarter after prolonged outflows.

Gold has stormed higher this year, rallying by more than a third and setting successive records. The jump has been driven by robust central-bank buying and increased demand from wealthy investors, with recent gains aided by the Federal Reserve’s shift to cutting interest rates. Purchases in the opaque over-the-counter market were becoming an increasingly important force for prices, according to John Reade, the council’s chief market strategist.

“Demand has switched through the course of this year from predominantly emerging-market OTC buying — high-net-worth individuals — toward very much more Western OTC buying,” Reade said. OTC transactions are done through dealers or between buyers and sellers directly, without an exchange.

Gold — which set an intraday record just above $2,800 an ounce in Wednesday’s trading — has registered gains every month this year, apart from a minor pullback in January, and in June, when prices were flat. “The fact that corrections have been very shallow and short is a keen indication of FOMO buying,” Reade said in an interview, referring to investors’ so-called fear of missing out.

As the rate-cutting cycle gets underway, the WGC expects to see increased allocation to bullion, with geopolitical uncertainty — particularly surrounding next week’s tight US presidential election — adding to reasons why investors are seeking to hold the haven asset.

Investment flows were key to the metal’s 13% gain in the third quarter, with total demand for ETFs, bars and coins reaching the strongest levels since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Central-bank purchases continued — with Poland, Hungary and India among the top buyers — even as the pace of official activity slowed. Jewelry demand fell as record prices hurt consumption.

Looking ahead, fiscal concerns — especially about swelling levels of government debt in the US — may become more pronounced as a driver, according to Reade.

There are concerns, including from the International Monetary Fund, “saying the deficit’s too big and really needs to be sorted out,” Reade said. “That’s the primary attraction from the OTC community to increase their gold holdings.”

Mali’s mining code allows Compass to mine up to 200,000 tonnes of ore a year in the country’s south and produce as much as 160,000 oz. of metal over the next four years. Free cash flow from operations will support debt repayment, fund operating expenses, and advance exploration along the 15 km Tarabala trend, part of its Sikasso property, the company said in a release.

CEO Larry Phillips said the agreement puts Compass on the path to generating cash flow quickly while taking advantage of high gold prices.

“This initial joint-production arrangement represents an important step toward achieving near-term production with minimal capital investment,” Phillips said in a release. “We firmly believe the accelerated timeline afforded by this arrangement is especially important, given the historically high gold price to be realized through the production and sale of gold in the coming year.”

Compass shares hit a 12-month high in Toronto on Tuesday at C$0.22 apiece, having traded at a low of C$0.11. It has a market capitalization of C$15 million.

The agreement allows Compass to process 50 tonnes of ore per hour at the SMAT facility using new processing equipment scheduled for installation by early next year. The plant is just 3 km from its Massala prospect, where the Tarabala trend is found, and south of the capital Bamako.

Trenching results

Recent trenching at Massala returned gold assays above 1 gram gold per tonne, according to a release on Aug. 19. That’s above the minimum threshold for small-mine profitability, the company said.

The prospecting found strong gold near the surface. Assays confirmed a minable strike length of 150 metres.

The best results from the 5-metre-deep trenches included 21 metres at 3.51 grams gold per tonne. A high-grade interval was 1 metre at 40.29 grams gold. Compass said these results support its push for a small mine permit under Mali’s mining code, for which the Toronto-based company applied on Aug. 19.

It also seeks to renew its larger Sikasso property exploration permit, which spans 1,173 sq. km.

Phillips says he’s confident in the project timeline, expecting receipt of the mining permit early in the new year to coincide with plant readiness.

“We are close to pouring our first gold.”

Robust demand in the world’s second-biggest gold consumer could further support global prices, which hit record highs last week. Rising demand for imports of gold could also widen India’s trade deficit and put pressure on the rupee.

“People are still into gold big time, even with prices at record highs during Dhanteras. With gold giving better returns than the stock market, there’s been solid demand for coins and bars,” said Saurabh Gadgil, chairman of PNG Jewellers.

Indians were celebrating Dhanteras on Tuesday, a day considered auspicious for buying gold and one of the busiest gold-buying days in India.

Local gold prices jumped to a record high of 78,919 rupees per 10 grams last week, marking an increase of more than 31% since last year’s Diwali. India’s NSE Nifty 50 share index has dropped about 7% from a record high hit on Sept. 27.

Investors are working to diversify their portfolios by adding to or increasing their allocations in gold and silver, Gadgil said.

“In value terms, turnover during this year’s Dhanteras is expected to be significantly higher than last year due to higher prices. In volume terms, it may be slightly lower or around the same level as last year,” Prithviraj Kothari, president of the India Bullion and Jewellers Association (IBJA), said.

Indian dealers on Tuesday charged a premium of up to $1 an ounce over official domestic prices – inclusive of 6% import and 3% sales levies, up from the last week’s discount of $4.

Local silver futures hit a record high of 100,081 rupees per kilogram last week.

“Demand for silver coins and bars was strong today, as silver has delivered better returns than gold in recent months,” said Chirag Thakkar, CEO of Amrapali Group Gujarat, a leading silver importer.

(By Rajendra Jadhav; Editing by Susan Fenton)

Centamin noted that the necessary majority of its shareholders, equivalent to more than 75% of the voting rights, backed the deal at a court and general meeting held on Monday.

The deal would make the South African gold miner the world’s fourth largest producer of the precious metal as it hands it the key to the Sukari mine in Egypt.

Sukari is the country’s largest and first modern gold operation, as well as one of the world’s largest producing mines.

The addition of the Sukari mine to its portfolio will increase AngloGold’s annual production by around 450,000 ounces, bringing its total output to 3.1 million ounces. 

Since production began in 2009, Sukari has produced more than 5.9 million ounces of gold, and has a projected mine life of 14 years.

The acquisition of Centamin has already received clearance from Egypt’s competition authorities.

There is still one obstacle to overcome, AngloGold said, which is the approval of the scheme by the Jersey Court, withe the hearing scheduled for November 20.

Once the deal goes through, AngloGold shareholders will hold about 83.6% of the combined entity, while Centamin investors will own roughly 16.4% of the enlarged share capital.

The acquisition is the latest in a flurry of gold deals fuelled by record-breaking prices for the precious metal. It is also the latest blow to the London stock market, which has seen an exodus of companies over the past few years. The exchange has faced challenges since Randgold’s delisting after its merger with Barrick Gold in 2018, and the massive departure of Russian gold miners following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Vancouver-based junior said Monday that hole AP-24-313 hit 6.1 metres grading 8.24 grams gold per tonne from 388.5 metres depth. This extends the zone called the High Grade Panel (HGP) by 115 metres at depth. Another drill hole AP-24-314, cut 16 metres grading 16.7 grams gold from 182 metres deep. It detected a new mineralized zone between the HGP and the Parallel Panel zone.

Heliostar has drilled 1,995 metres of its planned first-phase 2,600 metres, with a second program set to follow early next year. Success here will factor into an updated feasibility study due by the end of 2025.

The company has C$9.5 million in cash, boosted by recent financings to support its drilling and development plans.

It says it will continue drilling to find the new zone’s limits and to see if it connects to the broader Parallel Panel.

Heliostar reworked the Ana Paula project from an open-pit to an underground mine in 2023 to improve economics, targeting the HGP. With over $100 million invested in infrastructure, including a 53-man camp, surface rights, a portal, and a 412-metre decline, the first phase of production aims for 50,000 oz. gold yearly, doubling to 100,000 oz. in a subsequent development.

The 2023 feasibility study reported an after-tax net present value (5% discount) of $233 million and an internal rate of return of 34%, based on a gold price assumption of $1,400 per ounce.

Meaningful growth

3L Capital director of capital markets Kim MacIntyre said the results point to meaningful resource growth, not just incremental gains for Heliostar. “The potential for new zones boosts both the mine plan and future valuation,” McIntyre wrote in a note to clients.

The analyst suggested the new gold zone could add mineable ounces if future drilling confirms continuity. “With these results, Heliostar gains the flexibility to enhance the mine plan and extend Ana Paula’s lifespan, setting it up for long-term success,” MacIntyre said.

Over the past few months, Heliostar shifted its drill orientation from east-west to north-south. According to CEO Charles Funk, this revealed more high-grade mineralization. “We changed the drill direction by 90 degrees, and it paid off,” Funk said in a news release. “With each hole, Ana Paula keeps showing more high-grade gold.”

MacIntyre notes that the company’s share price of C$0.65 reflects only 0.32x its net asset value (NAV). According to her calculations, if Heliostar reaches the average 0.64x P/NAV of its peers, the stock could double. 3L Capital’s analysis places Heliostar’s base NAV at C$750 million, or C$2.03 per share.

Acquisition update

Meanwhile, Heliostar has secured Mexican regulatory clearance for its C$5 million buy of Argonaut Gold’s former Mexican assets from Florida Canyon Gold. The company expects the deal to close early next month. The acquisition adds the San Agustin and La Colorada mines to its portfolio. They will provide cash flow to fund further development at the Ana Paula project.

The San Agustin mine, an open-pit heap leach operation produced 7,568 oz. of gold and 39,319 oz. of silver in the first quarter this year, and the La Colorada mine, currently on care and maintenance, yielded 3,922 oz. of gold and 6,848 oz. of silver in the same period from residual leaching.

Heliostar shares were down 1.5% at C$0.63 apiece in afternoon trading Monday, having touched C$0.17 and C$0.74 over the past year. It has a market capitalization of C$145.2 million.

Using data from 2022, the study estimates that the US generated 13,767 kg of gold that year worth around £882.8 million from its e-waste. The gold was recycled from a world-leading 4.1 billion kg of wastes, owing to the nation’s consumerist culture.

In second place is China, which recycled fewer than half of the gold than its main rival at 6,630 kg worth £425.1 million. In 2022, the world’s top consumer recycled 1.9 billion kg of documented e-waste, contributed by its role as a global e-waste hub since the 1970s.

Germany ranks third in estimated gold value from recycled e-waste, with 3,249 kg of gold worth approximately £208.4 million. The country processed 956.6 million kg of waste in 2022, a result of strict EU policies that require responsible collection and recycling.

Rounding out the top five are two other G7 nations — France and Japan — with 2,924 kg (£187.5 million) and 2,084 kg (£133.6 million) respectively.

The country that recycled the least amount of gold in 2022 was Azerbaijan, with just 10,000 kg. This could be for a range of reasons, such as a limited e-waste management infrastructure or the lack of regulations, the study says.

On a per-capita basis, Norway led the way with 19.42 kg of documented and recycled waste from electronic goods in 2022, which could generate an estimated 0.066 gram of gold worth £4.23.

For the full list of the world’s top gold recyclers from e-waste, click here.

Nations Royalty Corp. (CVE: NRC) is 77% Indigenous owned and its unique approach has attracted the backing renowned mining entrepreneur Frank Guistra.

The company enables Indigenous groups to keep ownership of royalty assets while receiving early economic benefits from mining projects on their land.

Royalties are not negotiated directly with mining companies, but through partnership with First Nations and Indigenous groups that have existing royalties. 

Nations Royalty chief investment officer Derrick Pattenden says the sharing of royalties between Indigenous groups has benefits beyond increased diversification.

Watch the full interview with MINING.com’s Devan Murugan:

As part of the deal, Aura will obtain a 100% interest in Bluestone’s Cerro Blanco gold project in southeast Guatemala as well as the adjacent Mita geothermal project.

The Cerro Blanco project has faced challenges from the Guatemalan government, which disputed the January permit amendment allowing its transition to an open-pit mining operation.

Bluestone is 27%-owned by the Lundin family trust and had initially planned the $411 million gold project near the border with El Salvador.

Cerro Blanco aims to yield 2.7 million oz. of gold over 14 years, based on a 2022 feasibility study. It hosts measured and indicated resources of 63.5 million tonnes at 1.5 grams gold and 6.6 grams silver per tonne for 3 million oz. and 13.5 million oz. of the metals, respectively.

Aura stated that upon closing the transaction, it intends to evaluate alternatives for the potential future development of Cerro Blanco.

“Cerro Blanco stands as a world-class deposit that has encountered both social and institutional hurdles. We are confident that, over the next few years, by integrating it with Aura’s 360 vision, we can refine our strategic approach to make Cerro Blanco another flagship project,” said Rodrigo Barbosa, CEO of Aura.

Cerro Blanco is located approximately 230 km from the Minosa operating mine in Honduras, where Aura produced 65,927 ounces of gold in 2023. In addition, Aura has operating mines in Mexico and Brazil.

Over the last 12 months, Aura achieved production of 270,000 gold equivalent ounces (GEOs). With the acquisition of Bluestone, Aura expects its growth pipeline to expand beyond 450,000 GEOs in the coming years.

Shares of Aura Minerals rose 2.35% following the news, bringing the company’s market capitalization to $910 million. Bluestone’s shares fell 1.5% by 12:00 p.m. EDT, for a market capitalization of $37.6 million.

The acquisition, said Minera Alamos, would transform the company into a diversified North American gold producer beyond its existing Mexican operations led by the Santana gold mine in Sonora. The addition of Copperstone could add approximately 40,000 oz. of annual gold production, based on the project’s preliminary economic assessment (PEA) from last year.

The economics are based on a total resource estimate of 1.2 million tonnes grading 7.74 grams per tonne gold (300,000 contained oz.) in the measured and indicated category and 970,000 tonnes grading 6.30 g/t gold (197,000 contained oz.) in the inferred category.

The 2023 PEA represents a restart plan for the past-producing mine at Copperstone that produced a reported 514,000 oz. of gold between 1987 and 1993 from open pit mining and later had a brief period of underground mining. Since all facilities envisioned in the PEA are located in “brownfields” locations, the project’s water and surface rights have in place for years, and the mine is fully permitted for restart.

The PEA gave Copperstone an after-tax net present value of $89.3 million (using a 5% discount rate and $2,000 gold price), an internal rate of return of 71.1% and a payback period of 1.3 years. The initial mine life is estimated at 5.7 years, and initial capital at $36.3 million.

The reduced upfront capital is a result of the existing site infrastructure that had been installed from previous mining activities at Copperstone. According to Minera Alamos, a significant portion of the on-site infrastructure is in good repair and is available for the restart of site operations.

“The Copperstone project is an ideal addition to our portfolio of low-capex, late-stage development projects. The site has significant infrastructure and permits in place which will allow our technical group to quickly advance the project into production,” stated Darren Koningen, CEO of Mineral Alamos.

Acquisition terms

To acquire Sabre, Minera Alamos will issue approximately 76.5 million common shares to Sabre shareholders, representing a share exchange ratio of 0.693 to 1. Sabre will also settle certain debts with creditors by issuing shares at a 15% discount.

Upon completion of these transactions, existing Minera Alamos and Sabre shareholders will own 86% and 14% of the combined company, respectively.

Shares in Sabre Gold Mines nearly doubled following the announcement, up from C$0.12 at Friday’s market close to a 52-week high of C$0.23 on Monday morning. The gold junior has a market capitalization of C$17.6 million.

Minera Alamos’ shares fell 2.6% to C$0.38 apiece by 11:50 a.m. in Toronto, for a market capitalization of C$174.8 million.

Bolstered portfolio

Minera Alamos estimates that the addition of Sabre’s Copperstone project will increase its total gold resource inventory by 35% to almost 1.9 million oz., including a 60% increase in estimated measured and indicated resources. The acquisition cost is estimated at only $43/oz.

The acquisition adds another potential low-capex mine on top of the company’s Santana project, which entered production in 2021 and is currently going through the start-up of operations at the new Nicho Main deposit. Its Cerro de Oro oxide gold project in northern Zacatecas also has considerable past drilling, and the proposed mining project is currently being guided through the permitting process. The company also owns the La Fortuna open pit gold project in Durango, which has its main federal permits in place.

Minera Alamos intends to build out its Mexican assets in phases, with an eye on becoming a 150,000 oz./year gold producer. The addition of Copperstone, the company says, provides visibility to a further visibility to that goal.

The new project is expected to have a relatively rapid construction schedule that is currently anticipated at approximately 12 months. Minera Alamos said it is already in the process of optimizing new engineering design/plans for the project construction and is expanding its technical group to manage the increased activities.

Total demand fell by 22% to 218 tons in the three months to September, according to Bloomberg calculations based on data from the China Gold Council on Monday. Jewelry consumption tumbled 29% to 130 tons, while for bars and coins there was a 9% drop to 69 tons.

Gold prices have rallied by about a third this year, hitting a fresh peak last week, on increased purchases by central banks, as well as sustained haven demand from investors. That surge has made jewelry purchases much more expensive at a time when many Chinese consumers are already feeling the strain from a prolonged slowdown in the economy.

Over the first three quarters, gold consumption fell by 11% to 742 tons, according to the council. Last month, non-monetary imports dropped to 97 tons, down 22% from a year ago, although they rose from August.

Read More: BofA’s Hartnett says bets on gold are rising before US election

The total stock market valuation of the world’s biggest mining companies is up a fairly modest 8% year to end-September and despite the good run is still $240 billion below the peak hit in the second quarter of 2022. And judging by the performance of the top tier in the final quarter (BHP down 8% QTD, Rio Tinto –5%, Vale –3%, Glencore –5%, Newmont –9%, Zijin –5%, Freeport –7%) the gap won’t be closing anytime soon.

In contrast, Nvidia — the maker of chips highly prized for artificial intelligence (AI) computing — is up nearly 200% so far this year (and 2,600% over five). When comparing the graphics card maker’s stock valuation to the mining industry’s collective worth, it’s difficult not to wonder if something is not awry with how global investors appraise the industrial economy.  

Should Nvidia (or Microsoft or Apple for that matter) be worth more than twice the top 50 miners? Outside the top 50 the average market cap quickly shrinks to the low teens so Nvidia is in fact worth more than the entire listed mining industry. 

Even when extending the top 50 into metals and energy –  steel, aluminium and electricity companies often operate their own mines – Nvidia can still throw shade. BHP does not even crack the top 100 most valuable companies in the world and is worth less than Booking.com, and Temu and Zara’s owners, none of which can exactly be called the building blocks of the global economy. 

Nvidia briefly surpassed Apple on Friday to become the world’s most valuable company. Its market capitalization is approximately $3.5 trillion, just below Apple’s, which remains the highest-valued firm globally.

The project, previously jointly and equally owned by the two companies, is expected to help Gold Fields balance its aging assets in Ghana and Peru, adding 300,000 ounces per year at an all-in sustaining cost (AISC) of under $800 per ounce, from early 2027.

The deal, announced in August, drew some criticism as Gold Fields paid a 55% premium for the second batch of Osisko shares. Chief executive Mike Fraser assured the market on Monday that Gold Fields remained in a strong financial position following the acquisition, maintaining its investment-grade credit rating.

Analysts have pointed that Gold Fields paid a premium for Osisko mainly to acquire a high-quality project and prevent being outbid for a growth asset in a strongly supportive gold market. Several banks and agencies forecast that prices for the precious metal will surpass $2,800/ounce this year and reach $3,000/ounce by 2025.

Gold Fields’ top executive said the company’s financial position was anticipated to strengthen further, thanks to cash flow growth projected for the remainder of the year and into 2025, driven by increased production volumes at various operations.

“Deposits of the scale and quality of Windfall with highly prospective exploration camps are rare, particularly in a world-class jurisdiction like Québec,” Fraser said. “This transaction therefore marks an important step in our journey to continue improving the quality of our portfolio.”

Growth “anchor”

Gold Fields plans to bring the Windfall mine into production by the end of 2026 or early 2027. The project, along with the recently commissioned Salares Norte project in Chile, is central to the company’s growth strategy.

“Windfall will be a real anchor for Gold Fields’ portfolio,” Fraser told our sister publication The Northern Miner in September. “It’s a place we’ve long looked at to grow our footprint.”

The asset holds an estimated 3.2 million ounces gold in 12 million tonnes at 8.1 grams gold per tonne in proven and probable reserves. Further exploration could extend the project’s lifespan, adding more long-term value, the company says.

Founded in 1887 by Cecil John Rhodes, Gold Fields has reshaped itself throughout the years. It sold all but one of its South African assets a decade ago, refocusing on newer, more profitable deposits in Ghana, Australia, and the Americas.

The gold producer projects output this year to total 2.2 million to 2.3 million ounces of the precious metal, revised down from an original estimate of 2.3 million to 2.4 million ounces to account for the delays in the Salares Norte ramp up.

Mali is considering letting the permit for Loulo lapse when it expires in February 2026, Finance Minister Alousseni Sanou said in an Oct. 18 letter sent to Barrick’s chief executive officer Mark Bristow, and seen by Bloomberg. Mali “reserves the right not to renew the operating permit” and invited Barrick to talks on the mine’s “transition phase” starting later this month, Sanou wrote.

The move comes as the junta has taken an increasingly hard line against the world’s second biggest gold miner, including briefly jailing four of its local executives last month over alleged “financial crimes.” Mali this week accused Barrick of failing to honor a September agreement aimed at resolving their disputes, which the Canadian company has denied.

A spokesman for Barrick declined to comment when reached by phone. Mali’s Finance Minister Sanou declined to comment in a text message.

The Loulo concession forms part of the Loulo-Gounkoto complex, in which Barrick owns 80% and the government holds the rest. The larger site represented roughly 13% of Barrick’s attributable gold production in 2023, according to its annual report.

CEO Bristow has visited the West African country repeatedly over the last year — including a stop at the mine in March where he told local media that it contributed more than $1 billion to the Malian economy in the past 12 months.

The country last week rejected Barrick’s proposal to divide the economic benefits from Loulo-Gounkoto 55% for Mali and 45% for the company.

The junta’s demands on Barrick follow a 2023 audit of mining contracts and a push to renegotiate existing agreements with mining companies — including B2Gold Corp, Allied Gold Corp and AngloGold Ashanti Plc — in a bid to boost the state’s revenue from its mineral resources through a new mining code adopted last year.

The new code comes as Mali seeks to shore up its revenue following a 2020 coup that saw the country cut off from aid and the regional debt market. The code says that the state and “national interests” could increase stakes in mining projects to 35% from 20% previously. It also reduces the duration of mining licenses to 10 years from 30 years and adds a provision for more Malian nationals in leading positions in mining entities.

Mali has been pushing foreign mining companies including Barrick to align with the new regulations, which should only apply to new contracts and renewals of existing permits, Assane Sidibe, the president of the mining commission within the National Transitional Council told Bloomberg last year.

The junta hasn’t taken any steps to implement the agreed extension of the Loulo mining convention, which Barrick negotiated with the civilian government the military ousted in 2020, according to the company.

Escalating tensions

Tensions between Barrick and the government have escalated in the past month, after Mali briefly detained the four executives, all Malian nationals.

In a letter on Oct. 14, also seen by Bloomberg, Bristow proposed a 225 billion CFA franc ($371 million) financial settlement and the conclusion of a memorandum of understanding relating to Barrick subsidiary Société des Mines de Loulo’s operational permit.

Barrick’s changes to the government’s draft “are essential to preserve the economic viability of the Loulo-Gounkoto complex,” Bristow said. “These changes aim at assuring a just and fair split of the economic benefits generated by the complex.”

In the letter on Oct. 18, Sanou rejected Barrick’s proposal saying it was “fundamentally different” to Mali’s version.

(By Katarina Höije, Diakaridia Dembele and William Clowes)

Bullion climbed to its highest mark ever, around $2,758.49, on Wednesday as investors focused on key macro risks — from continued turmoil in the Middle East to the US election — in the weeks ahead. So far this year, gold is up 32%, outpacing the S&P 500 Index’s 23% gains.

“When we try to relate the moves in gold this year to traditional, financial and economic variables — interest rates, the dollar — the relationships have broken down,” said El-Erian, the president of Queens’ College, Cambridge, on Bloomberg Television Friday.

The “secular” move can be attributed to two fundamental drivers, he added.

“One is the slow diversification away from the dollar in the reserves of central banks around the world,” he said. “The other is a slow diversification away from the dollar payment system.”

While the move has been slow, “the bad news is the momentum is building up,” said El-Erian, who is also a Bloomberg Opinion columnist.

Recent events have accelerated the trend toward gold, according to El-Erian.

Chief among them is Russia’s ability to maintain trading relationships and grow even after the exclusion of its major banks from Swift, a global financial messaging service. While recent Swift data shows that the share of dollars in international payments has held relatively stable in recent years, just below 50% and far exceeding other currencies, transactions involving the yuan have risen in recent months.

The other event is the Middle East, El-Erian said, adding that a majority of countries have viewed US as an “inconsistent backer” of human rights and international law.

(By Carter Johnson)

Miners in Santander and Norte de Santander, predominantly from the informal gold sector, are protesting the government’s plan to declare an area near the Andean wetland known as Santurbán as a temporary natural reserve, which would bar them from the gold deposits beneath its soil.

Separately, in Antioquia province in the northwest, workers are protesting the destruction of excavators and other heavy machinery used in illegal or informal gold mining by security forces.

More than two-thirds of the nation’s gold is produced by in operations that lack full certification. Many of the mining operations in rivers and remote mountains are controlled by organized crime groups.

The sector has received a boost this year as gold prices soared to a record as the spreading conflict in the Middle East increases haven demand and traders assess risks from the upcoming US presidential election. The metal has surged by about a third this year to $2,738.95 on Friday.

The government of President Gustavo Petro was elected on pledges to protect the nation’s environment, which has sometimes brought it into conflict with environmentally-damaging sectors such as cattle ranching and illegal mining.

With protests entering a fifth day, Mines and Energy Minister Andres Camacho said Friday in a post on X that talks to end the protests are ongoing. Agreements have been reached to allow for the intermittent opening of roads, Camacho said, following a meeting with miners in Antioquia.

Blocked roads have prevented more than 140,000 tons of products from reaching their destination, El Tiempo newspaper reported Thursday. This comes after nationwide protests in September paralyzed swathes of the country after the government announced plans to hike diesel prices.

The environment ministry at the start of the year issued a decree with which it can determine places where mining activity is restricted for five years while officials determine if the area meets criteria to become protected. This five year period can also be extended.

In September, the government signaled that it would publish a resolution to assign this status to an area around the Santurbán wetland, which would mark the first time it used the decree.

(By Andrea Jaramillo)

The precious metal hit a record high on Wednesday and gold funds recorded their biggest weekly inflow since July 2020, a team led by Michael Hartnett wrote.

Other recent popular trades, such as selling bonds and buying artificial intelligence stocks, are holding up ahead of the Nov. 5 election, the strategists said. The yield on US 10-year government bonds briefly breached 4.2% this week, the highest level since July, while shares of US chip company Nvidia Corp. hit an all-time high.

The gold trade is part of a wider investor strategy to position portfolios against a possible win for Donald Trump in the election. The US dollar has also rallied on bets a win for the Republican candidate would trigger a rebound in inflation, a rising budget deficit and a potential trade war with China.

Hedge funds haven’t been this bullish on the dollar since June 2021, the BofA strategists said, citing CFTC data. The BofA team also noted that investors are placing bets against China despite recent stimulus measures.

Low payrolls data pointing to a recession could dent investor confidence about some of these trades and trigger a rotation from stocks to bonds, the strategists said. The impact of the presidential election on inflation could also motivate the Federal Reserve to reverse gear and raise rates instead of cutting them, they said.

The contest between Trump and Kamala Harris is currently very tight according to polls in swing states, while betting odds currently favor the Republican candidate.

(By Julien Ponthus and Sagarika Jaisinghani)

The GDX VanEck Gold Miners ETF has long been gold stocks’ leading sector benchmark and trading vehicle. This was the original pioneering gold-stock ETF, born way back in May 2006. GDX’s first-mover advantage has grown into an insurmountable lead, commanding net assets of $16.8b midweek. That nearly doubles the 13 next-largest gold-stock ETFs’ combined net assets! GDX is this sector’s juggernaut.

It just enjoyed a rather-remarkable nine consecutive trading days of rallying, blasting 13.7% higher in mid-October! That was fueled by a parallel big 5.3% gold surge, which the major gold stocks dominating GDX amplified by a good 2.6x. Historically GDX has usually leveraged material gold moves by 2x to 3x. While certainly an impressive win streak, it was only its last few days that proved important technical milestones.

Gold rapidly surged to extremely-overbought levels in late September, dramatically upping the odds for a rebalancing selloff. I analyzed gold’s high selloff risk in-depth in an early-October essay. That pullback indeed got to work, although it was retarded by soaring geopolitical risks after Iran lobbed hundreds of ballistic missiles into Israel! Still gold retreated a modest 2.4% over a couple weeks into early October.

That dragged GDX a proportional 6.8% lower, for larger 2.9x downside leverage. That selloff started from this sector ETF’s upleg-to-date peak of $41.64, leaving GDX well lower. But gold stocks were quick to claw back their losses, with GDX rallying back to $41.49 last Thursday the 17th. Both levels remained barely decisively above GDX’s last major peak of $40.87 in mid-April 2022, yet still in that resistance zone.

A decisive breakout is exceeding an old closing high by 1%+, which happened on September 24th when GDX closed over $41.28. But technical analysis is subjective, with most support and resistance lines on charts drawn by hand. So from a visual standpoint on a multi-year chart, gold stocks still looked to be near major upper resistance around GDX $41. They could easily still retreat, forming a double topping.

This gold-stock-technicals chart of recent years illuminates that $41 resistance zone. In order for that minor breakout mathematically to become major psychologically, GDX had to blast considerably higher into new chart territory. New highs had to look visually-striking, which finally happened a week ago on Friday the 18th. GDX soared a huge 4.0% higher that day, indisputably achieving a major secular breakout!

It was the best kind too, happening despite no real news. Gold did rally 1.1% to its third record high in a row of $2,721, but there was no Fed-dovish key economic data to drive that. Mounting geopolitical fears heading into a weekend likely played a role, as the world anxiously awaited Israel’s crippling retaliation against Iran for that ballistic-missile barrage. GDX’s big 4.0% up day amplified gold’s by a huge 3.7x.

Precious-metals sentiment lurched sizably to shifting bullish, thanks to gold’s defiant October rally and that big, round, psychologically-important $2,700 level being exceeded. Gold really should have sold off considerably this month. Leading into October, gold was not only extremely-overbought but speculators’ gold-futures longs had hit their 5th-highest levels on record! So massive mean-reversion selling was likely.

And recent weeks’ market conditions have been pretty bearish for gold. The AI stock bubble continued to greatly distract investors, as the flagship S&P 500 stock index melted up to several new record highs of its own. Major economic-data releases including monthly US jobs, CPI inflation, PPI inflation, and retail sales all deviated from Wall Street expectations in Fed-hawkish directions, lowering expected Fed rate cuts.

Entering October futures implied traders were expecting the FOMC to cut another 69 basis points at its two remaining meetings in 2024, on top of its emergency-grade 50bp initial cut in mid-September. Then another 104bp was expected in 2025. All that was the equivalent of fully nine quarter-point cuts by the end of next year, aggressive easing! That outlook was quite-bearish for the US dollar but bullish for gold.

Fast-forward to midweek, and a big jobs upside surprise, hotter-than-expected CPI and PPI inflation, and better retail sales had crunched those expected rate cuts back down to 38bp more in 2024 followed by another 86bp in 2025. That would total seven quarter-point cuts, slashing two off the table in just several weeks. The US Dollar Index reflected fewer probable cuts, soaring 3.5% higher month-to-date as of midweek!

Normally speculators look to the USDX’s fortunes for their primary cues to trade gold futures, then do the opposite. And specs’ extreme longs and very-low shorts left them big room to sell as the dollar soared. Yet very unusually that didn’t happen. Instead of falling an inversely-proportional 3.5% to the USDX’s October rally, gold somehow blasted 3.2% higher during it! That reflected and fueled way-more-bullish sentiment.

Naturally gold-stock traders love seeing the metal that drives the miners’ profits continue achieving new highs. And the big round numbers generate more trader excitement and financial-media buzz. We’ve been blessed with lots of those this year. In late March when gold bested $2,200 for the first time in history, GDX surged 2.1% on top of the prior day’s +3.8%! A week later when gold hit $2,300, GDX shot up 3.2%.

Gold’s first-ever close above $2,400 arrived in mid-May, which was celebrated with a big 3.4% GDX up day. Then $2,500 fell in mid-August, catapulting GDX up 3.2% that day and 1.9% the next! $2,600 was broken in late September, and GDX surged 2.0% that day after +1.7% the day before. So there is certainly plenty of recent precedent for GDX’s big 4.0% surge last Friday when gold first exceeded $2,700.

That particular big gold-stock up day was very important technically, since it erupted just under GDX’s upleg-to-date peak. That shot GDX up to $43.15 on close, the highest seen since early August 2020. That was the visually-striking $41-resistance-zone breakout GDX needed to generate more gold-stock excitement among traders and the financial media! Then it got better, as GDX surged 2.0% to $44.09 this Tuesday.

Gold stocks have largely been out of favor for a long time, over a decade now. While there have been plenty of strong uplegs for speculators to trade for big gains, there hasn’t been enough accumulating upside progress for investors. Before this week, GDX only closed above $44 on three trading days in the entire span since late January 2013! That was a three-day streak in early August 2020 as a monster gold upleg topped.

Gold uplegs have to achieve 40%+ gains with no 10%+ corrections to achieve monster status, and the last one before today’s emerged out of March 2020’s pandemic-lockdown stock panic. Gold soared exactly 40.0% higher over 4.6 months in that, which the major gold stocks of GDX amplified 3.4x to a huge 134.1% gain! GDX crested at $44.48, one day before gold. That makes for a critical technical juncture.

Just this Tuesday, GDX closed merely 0.9% under surpassing that last monster-gold-upleg peak. A close above there would be an 11.8-year secular high for this leading gold-stock benchmark! Seeing decade-plus breakouts is exceedingly-rare in markets, so those have big psychological impacts. The gold stocks are within spitting distance of a massive secular breakout that will drive much interest and enthusiasm.

I suspect that’s coming soon. Both gold and gold stocks have pulled back in recent days, which is totally normal after the metal rocketed up to extremely-overbought levels and the miners enjoyed an exceptional up-day streak. Uplegs and bull markets are never linear, taking two steps forward before one step back. Periodic selloffs are essential to bleed off excess greed and rebalance sentiment, extending uplegs’ longevity.

At best since early October 2023, gold’s current monster upleg has soared an extraordinary 51.0% higher! Remember that GDX has historically amplified major gold moves by 2x to 3x, implying major gold stocks should be up 102% to 153% by now. Yet at its latest interim high this week, GDX had “only” rallied 70.2% over the last 12.6 months during gold’s huge upleg. Festering apathy and bearishness forced this lagging.

But as gold itself powers up to more nominal records, and GDX achieves rare decade-plus highs, sector bullishness is going to continue growing. Gold stocks’ secular breakout will fuel more bullish coverage in the financial media, which will make more traders aware of their upside and deploy capital to chase their gains. This bullish dynamic becomes self-feeding, the faster gold stocks rally the more traders rush to buy.

If GDX merely recovers to 2x upside leverage to gold’s gains so far, we’d be looking at $52.33 which would be the best gold-stock levels since late October 2012! That eternity ago gold was only running near $1,725, and gold miners’ earnings were radically lower. If GDX gets to 3x before gold’s upleg gives up its ghost, that would catapult it to $65.54! Nothing like that has been witnessed since early September 2011.

That was one day after GDX’s all-time-record high of $66.63, which happened soon after gold challenged $1,900 for the first time ever. Normal gold-stock gains relative to gold have a real shot at launching GDX to new all-time highs in coming months! That would really accelerate coverage, awareness, bullishness, and buying. When traders reawaken to this sleeper sector, the epic gains they drive can be life-changing.

Case-in-point is gold’s last mighty secular bull, which ran from April 2001 to August 2011 yielding epic 638.2% gains. The end of that was when GDX hit that record high. As GDX was born during that bull, it doesn’t have total gains through it. But the older and very-similar HUI gold-stock index comprised of most of the same component stocks skyrocketed 1,664.4% higher during that bull! Talk about multiplying wealth.

Today’s secular gold bull was born in December 2015 at $1,051. While it took awhile to get going and moved in fits and starts, gold has powered 161.4% higher so far as of this week. GDX’s best gains during this span are only 253.6%, for very-weak 1.6x upside leverage. That’s way under the 2.6x achieved in gold’s last secular bull, implying massive catch-up rallying left to do. Gold stocks’ epic fundamentals support this.

The gold miners are just starting reporting their best quarterly earnings ever by far, fueled by awesome record gold prices. I wrote an entire essay a couple weeks ago analyzing gold stocks’ imminent epic quarterly results. In a nutshell, GDX-top-25 miners’ unit earnings are on track to skyrocket over 100% YoY to a dazzling new record $1,247 per ounce! And that immense profits growth is nothing new for this sector.

In the last four reported quarters ending in Q2’24, the GDX top 25 have already seen unit earnings soar 94%, 42%, 35%, and 84% YoY! That has driven gold-stock valuations dramatically lower, to low double-digit and even single-digit trailing-twelve-month price-to-earnings ratios. So fundamentals fully justify gold stocks soaring much higher to reflect their enormous profitability with these record prevailing gold prices.

It’s unfortunate investors have mostly abandoned gold stocks, but understandable after a dozen years of grinding sideways. But this sector’s big uplegs and corrections provide great opportunities for active trading. I’ve been recommending specific gold-stock trades as opportunities arise for a quarter-century now in our subscription newsletters, totaling 1,531 as of Q3’24 averaging great +16.0% annualized realized gains!

That’s roughly double the long-term stock-market average, in a neglected contrarian sector! Gold-stock gains are going to grow much larger once investors start returning en masse. And that psychological tipping point is nearing with gold stocks’ secular breakout building steam. With gold stocks still lagging gold’s monster record-shattering upleg, now is the time to do your homework and add gold-stock allocations.

The bottom line is gold stocks just achieved a major secular breakout to four-plus-year highs. And just a little more rallying will lift GDX to its best levels in nearly a dozen years. Such long-term breakouts are very rare in markets, and generate much interest and bullishness. They greatly expand awareness of the breaking-out sectors, enticing wider groups of traders to chase those mounting gains with aggressive buying.

And way-more gold-stock upside from here is highly-probable and fully-justified. The major gold stocks have really lagged gold’s monster upleg over this past year, an anomaly needing to mean revert to normal upside leverage. And the gold miners will soon report epic record Q3 earnings, extending their trend of massive year-over-year growth. Rampant undervaluation remains despite this sector’s secular breakouts.

(By Adam Hamilton)

Under a private placement agreement announced on Friday, Agnico will purchase approximately 33.9 million units of ATEX at C$1.63 per unit, representing a 15% premium over ATEX’s stock price from a week ago and 12.4% over its previous day’s closing price.

By 11:10 a.m. ET in Toronto, ATEX Resources traded 11% higher at C$1.61, having touched a 52-week high of C$1.66 a share earlier in the session. The company has a market capitalization of C$336.2 million ($242.3 million)

The Agnico investment will support ATEX’s exploration activities at the Valeriano project. The property covers approximately 61.3 sq. km and is host to a large copper-gold porphyry deposit, below a near-surface oxidized epithermal gold deposit that extends from surface to a depth of 100 metres.

Since 2021, ATEX has completed multiple phases of drilling to test the mineralization at Valeriano, beginning with the gold oxide deposit in the initial phase then extending to the porphyry system.

Last year, it produced a mineral resource estimate totalling 1.44 billion tonnes grading 0.49% copper and 0.21 g/t gold, all in the inferred category. The porphyry deposit makes up most of this resource — 1.41 billion tonnes at 0.50% copper and 0.20 g/t — and contains a higher-grade core totaling 200 million tonnes at 0.62% copper and 0.29 g/t gold.

“This transaction results in ATEX being well capitalized through 2025 to execute on our future drill programs and to continue defining this deposit while also continuing to de-risk and conduct engineering studies,” commented ATEX CEO Ben Pullinger in a news release.

In addition to the private placement, the company also announced that it will repay the entire outstanding balance on its credit facility totaling $15 million through the issuance of equity. A total of 7.9 million units at the same price of the offering (C$1.63) and 5.5 million shares priced at C$1.42 each will be issued to its lenders (Firelight Investments, Beedie Capital and Trinity Capital Partners).

Moreover, ATEX has arranged a private placement with recently appointed board member Rick McCreary, who will purchase C$500,000 worth of units, also at the same price of the private placement.

Upon closing of the above transactions, Agnico would become one of ATEX’s largest shareholders, with a shareholding of 13% on an undiluted basis.

Newmont Corp. shares posted their biggest daily drop since 1997 on Thursday, tumbling 15% after the Denver-based company posted earnings, revenue and profit margins that fell short of analysts’ estimates in the third quarter, dragged down by higher costs. The stock traded a further 3% lower on Friday, with top rivals Barrick Gold Corp. and Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. also retreating.

Analysts had high hopes for the industry. Gold has surged more than 30% this year, while fuel prices — one of the miners’ key expenses — have been easing. But Newmont’s results revealed that big gold producers are still wrestling with inflationary pressures, especially regarding labor costs, that have lasted longer than expected.

“There’s a potential read-through here, assuming Newmont’s takeaways are accurate, that this is a risk factor for the industry,” said Josh Wolfson, a mining analyst with Royal Bank of Canada.

Newmont earned 80 cents a share, well short of the average estimate of 89 cents among analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Revenue of $4.61 billion also trailed estimates, as did its gross profit margin, which slipped below 50%.

The company said it spent more to dig up the precious metal at its mines in Australia, Canada, Peru and Papua New Guinea than in the previous quarter. Capital expenses rose 10% due to expansion projects in Australia and Argentina, while some of the company’s highest expenses came from major assets it picked up through last year’s $15 billion takeover of Newcrest Mining Ltd.

Some of those cost issues are specific to the company, and not necessarily indicative of a broader industry trend. Newmont is undertaking costly maintenance work at its Lihir mine in Papua New Guinea — a notoriously complex operation in a remote region — and it spent more to restart its Cerro Negro mine in Argentina after operations were paused due to the deaths of two workers in April.

But the company’s growing costs for workers could signal trouble across the industry.

“It’s the labor costs where we’re seeing that escalation,” chief executive officer Tom Palmer told analysts in a conference call Thursday.

“Whether that be maintenance shutdowns, maintenance that you use to supplement your workforce, costs of running camps, costs of flying people to and from the camps — that’s where we’re seeing some escalation beyond what we’d assumed at the start of the year.”

Miners’ pitch to investors is that they can offer better returns than owning the metal, partly due to greater investment options and shareholder payouts, but the industry has often underperformed over the past 15 years as major expansions left producers with big debts and angry shareholders.

Newmont’s earnings also serve as a preview for Canada’s Barrick, which shares a giant mining complex with Newmont in Nevada. The Nevada mines produced less gold compared to the previous quarter.

Despite investor disappointment, the gold miners are still being helped by the bullion boom: Newmont posted its highest quarterly profit in five years, raking in $922 million. Analysts expect Newmont is on track to net $3.2 billion in profit this year — which would be a record for the company.

Even after this week’s plunge, Newmont’s shares are up 15% this year.

Barrick, Agnico and other big producers including AngloGold Ashanti Plc and Gold Fields Ltd. are also expected to rake in windfall returns by the end of the year.

“The street expectations were too high,” said Carey MacRury, a mining analyst at Canaccord Genuity who recommends investors buy the shares. “It was negative, no doubt, but I don’t think it’s as negative as what the market’s telling us today.”

(By Jacob Lorinc)

Barrick, the world’s second-largest gold miner, announced on Sept. 30 it had agreed with the government to resolve disputes over the Loulo and Gounkoto gold mines, days after Malian authorities briefly detained four Malian staff working for the company.

But in a joint statement dated Oct. 23, Mali’s economy and mines ministries said Barrick had “not honoured the commitments to which it subscribed in the agreement.”

Without sharing further details, the ministries said the breaches included those relating to environmental and corporate social responsibility and foreign exchange rules.

They said there were “serious risks to the group’s continued operations in Mali, one of whose operating licenses expires at the beginning of 2026.”

“The Malian government has decided to draw all legal consequences arising from the actions taken by Barrick Gold,” they said.

In response, Barrick denied the allegations and said since Sept. 30 it had been actively engaged with the government to reach a settlement that would include an increase in the state’s share of economic benefits from the Loulo-Gounkoto complex.

“While Barrick does not accept any claims of wrongdoing, it has chosen to act in good faith as a long-standing partner of Mali,” it said in a statement, adding that the company had paid the government $85 million in early October in the context of ongoing negotiations.

Earlier this month, three sources told Reuters that Mali’s military government was seeking at least 300 billion CFA francs ($512 million) in outstanding taxes and dividends from Barrick.

Asked to comment at the time, a Barrick spokesperson said the company was still in the process of negotiation.

The demands on Barrick follow an audit of mining contracts last year and a subsequent push by the junta to renegotiate existing agreements with foreign mining firms aimed at channeling a greater share of revenues into state coffers through a new mining code.

(By Tiemoko Diallo, Sourasis Bose and Alessandra Prentice; Editing by Tasim Zahid and Sandra Maler)

The company’s latest batch of assays from its 10,000-metre drilling campaign included 10.9 grams of gold per tonne over 7.5 metres from 366 metres deep in hole 24ODD-083 east of the Wenot deposit. Hole 23O-082 to the west cut 3.19 grams gold over 22.8 metres from 304 metres deep.

These results confirm the continuity of mineralization, the company said. In all, Omai Gold released results from 8,460 metres of diamond drilling to date for 17 holes. The project centres on the Wenot deposit and satellite targets at East Wenot and West Wenot, and Snake Pond. The nearby Gilt Creek deposit to the northeast offers future underground potential.

Drilling targeted both deeper sections and gaps in the open pit mining scenario tabled in an April PEA. The results indicate potential to expand the resource and improve project returns, CEO Elaine Ellingham said in a news release.

Omai plans to update the resource update by March, with the PEA to follow by June.

At the West Wenot area, hole 24ODD-086 returned 2.96 grams of gold over 19.4 metres from a depth of 293.2 metres. It extended known mineralization 100 metres below prior high-grade zones.

Shares gained as much as 8% to C$0.195 in early trading Thursday, before falling back to Wednesday’s closing price of C$0.18. Coming off a 12-month low at C$0.035, shares are trading near the period high of C$0.205. It has a market capitalization of C$97 million.

Economic update

Work is also underway at the Gilt Creek deposit. The PEA excluded Gilt Creek at the start to facilitate early development. Management now sees integrating it as key to extending the site’s life beyond 20 years.

Gilt Creek has an indicated resource of 11.1 million tonnes at 3.2 grams gold per tonne for 1.2 million oz. of the precious metal. It has another 32.4 million tonnes of inferred material at 2.26 grams gold per tonne for 665,000 oz. that holds potential to further boost long-term output given more drilling.

The drilling campaign aims to convert untested areas into mineralized material.

The April PEA estimated Wenot’s after-tax net present value at $556 million (5% discount) and projected annual gold production of 142,000 oz. over 13 years.

Omai forecasts annual after-tax free cash flow of $112 million, translating to about $1 billion in cash flow across the mine’s lifespan. All-in sustaining costs were projected at $1,009 per ounce. According to the PEA, the mine’s construction cost of $375 million can be recouped in less than four years.

Under an option agreement signed Thursday, Kinross can earn a 65% interest in Puma’s Williams Brook, Portage and Jonpol properties by spending at least C$16.75 million on exploration during a five-year period, including a firm commitment of C$2 million for at least 5,000 metres of drilling within the first 18 months. Puma will remain the project operator during this period.

Marcel Robillard, Puma’s CEO, said that most of the initial C$2 million expenditure will be directed towards drilling and other identified targets on the company’s flagship Williams Brook property, and the injection of cash by Kinross over the next five years will “significantly accelerate exploration and unlock the project’s value.”

“Kinross’ commitment represents a stamp of approval on Williams Brook’s potential, and having Puma as the operator speaks to Kinross’ confidence in the strength of our exploration team,” Robillard said.

Since 2021, Puma has spent C$12.5 million on exploring the property and made several gold discoveries. Its current focus is on the high-grade Lynx zone, where drilling has returned results up to 5 grams per tonne gold over 50.15 metres. The mineralization at Lynx has so far been traced over a distance of 750 metres along strike, a width of 100 metres and a depth of 200 metres.

Combined with its Portage and Jonpol properties, Puma’s land package covers more than 490 square kilometres of prospective gold holdings near the Rocky Brook Millstream Fault, a major regional structure responsible for the gold deposition in the region.

“We believe in the region’s potential to host Canada’s next major gold camp. I am delighted to welcome Kinross, the first major gold producer to establish a presence in New Brunswick,” Robillard said in Thursday’s news release. Upon exercise of Kinross’ option, the companies would then form a 65/35 joint venture.

In addition to the option agreement, Kinross also intends to purchase approximately 16.86 million of Puma’s shares at C$0.06 per share for roughly C$1 million in proceeds, which the latter will use for its other projects. Upon completion, Kinross would hold 9.9% of Puma’s outstanding share capital.

Shares of Puma Exploration gained C$0.03 or 50% to C$0.09 by 1:50 p.m. ET following the Kinross investment. This gives the gold junior a market capitalization of C$13 million.

Anglo said its copper output fell 13% in the July to September quarter, while rough diamond production decreased by 25% on cuts due to prolonged lower demand.

Its De Beers diamonds unit is exploring options for further output cuts in future, Anglo said.

For the first nine months of 2024, copper output fell 4% to 575,000 tons and diamond production was down 21% at 18.9 million carats.

Anglo still expects to produce 730,000-790,000 tons of copper and 23-26 million carats of rough diamonds this year, even as it assesses additional production cuts going forward.

Its shares, which have risen around 18% this year, opened up 2.2%.

The mining giant is restructuring its business to mainly focus on energy transition metal copper after fending off a $49 billion takeover offer from bigger rival BHP Group in May.

Copper will make up 60% of Anglo’s business after it sells its Australian steelmaking coal assets and nickel mines in Brazil, as well as divesting De Beers and its platinum business Amplats in South Africa.

Apart from its copper assets in Chile, Anglo will also retain iron ore mines in South Africa and Brazil, as well as the Woodsmith fertilizer project in the United Kingdom, which it has now slowed down.

Anglo said steelmaking coal’s production fell by 6% in the third quarter after shutting its Grosvenor mine in Queensland due to an underground fire.

The London-listed miner, the world’s third-largest exporter of metallurgical coal, lowered its yearly production guidance to 14-15.5 million tons from a previous forecast of 15-17 million.

Anglo said the final round of bidders for the coal assets was in place and it expected to announce the sale agreement within months.

(By Clara Denina and Felix Njini; Editing by Stephen Coates and Mark Potter)

The funding involves Wheaton Precious Metals (TSX, NYSE, LON: WPN) and strategic shareholder Zijin Mining, increasing Montage’s available liquidity to approximately $968 million, including $143 million in cash reserves.

Wheaton has committed to acquire 19.5% of payable gold production from the Koné mine, until 400,000 ounces delivery, for a total upfront cash consideration of $625 million. The sum will be paid in four equal instalments during construction. Wheaton will then reduce the amount of gold to be purchased to 10.8% until 130 additional Koz, then 5.4% for the mine’s life. 

Additionally, the company is providing Montage a $75 million secured debt facility for project costs.

“With essential permits in place coupled with its impressive scale, we believe the Koné Project stands out as one of the premier gold assets in Africa,” Wheaton Precious Metals chief executive officer Randy Smallwood said in a separate statement.

“Supported by strong shareholder backing from the Lundin Group and Zijin Mining, the Koné project is expected to significantly boost Wheaton’s near-term annual gold production and further strengthen our peer-leading growth trajectory,” Smallwood noted. 

Zijin Mining is providing Montage with $125 million in funding, comprised of a $50m loan facility with a nine year tenure and a $75m fully redeemable subordinated gold stream.

“We are extremely pleased to have concluded our financing through the formation of strategic partnerships with both Wheaton and Zijin who share our vision of creating a premier African gold producer,” Montage CEO Martino De Ciccio said.

“With the financing milestone now achieved, we look forward to soon launching the construction of our Koné project, which is set to become West-Africa’s next sizable, long-life, low production-cost gold mine, and poised to unlock value for all stakeholders,” De Ciccio said.

This is Montage’s third successful financing of 2024, following an upsized private placement of $180 million in August and a $35 million placement in March.

The Koné mine is expected to produce 300,000 ounces of gold annually in the first eight years, with production starting in early 2027. The estimated mine life of Koné has been pegged at 16 years.

Shares fell as much as 9.1% in New York on Thursday, the biggest intraday decline since July 2022. The stock drop came a day after Newmont posted third-quarter results that missed analysts’ estimates on adjusted earnings, costs and revenue. Newmont fell short of expectations after spending more to dig up the precious metal at its mines in Australia, Canada, Peru and Papua New Guinea.

The Denver-based company is the first major gold producer to post results in an earnings season where investors have been anticipating bumper profits from bullion producers. Gold is among the best-performing metals this year, surging more than 30% since the start of January and setting repeated record highs.

“The street expectations were too high,” said Carey MacRury, a mining analyst at Canaccord Genuity. “It was negative, no doubt, but I don’t think it’s as negative as what the market’s telling us today.”

Despite the missed expectations, Newmont posted its highest quarterly profits in five years — raking in $922 million in net income attributable to shareholders for the quarter.

Gold miners have struggled with higher labor and energy costs over the past few years. Newmont said its capital expenses rose 10% due to expansion projects in Australia and Argentina. But some of the company’s higher expenses came from major assets it picked up through last year’s $15 billion takeover of Newcrest Mining Ltd. Newmont posted 55% higher all-in sustaining costs at its Lihir operation in Papua New Guinea in the third quarter compared to the prior period.

The higher expenses are largely due to specific operational issues at Newmont mines, according to MacRury.

“We don’t see the cost miss as inflation read-through to the broader industry,” he said.

(By Jacob Lorinc)

Among the 19 holes released late Tuesday were some of the best at Arakompa yet. Hole KARDD0029 hit 20.6 metres at 9.87 grams of gold equivalent per tonne from 240.6 metres depth. This included 10.7 metres at 14.97 grams gold equivalent. Hole KARDD0025 returned 23.6 metres at 6.57 grams gold equivalent. Drilling confirmed bulk mining potential given broad intercepts such as 100.8 metres at 1.92 grams gold equivalent and another that cut 111.62 metres at 1.53 grams gold equivalent per tonne.

The company’s executive vice president for exploration Chris Muller says Arakompa mineralization is comparable to the company’s producing Kainantu mine’s Kora and Judd veins. Kainantu is expected to operate until 2034, but the company aims to extend its lifespan further through expansions and exploration at the Kora, Judd, and Arakompa deposits.

“The grades and thicknesses at Arakompa mirror the Kora veins, making it just as prospective,” Muller said in a news release.

Located 4.5 km from the cornerstone Kainantu mine in the country’s Eastern Highlands, the Arakompa deposit hosts a historical resource of 800,000 oz. at 9 grams gold per tonne. It’s seen as critical for sustaining K92’s future production and could cut development costs by using existing infrastructure.

K92’s CEO, John Lewins, said the results opened up selective and bulk mining opportunities. “With Arakompa delivering grades and thicknesses like these, it fits seamlessly into our long-term strategy,” he said in the release.

Running the first drill program in 32 years on Arakompa, K92 has ramped up exploration, increasing from one to four drill rigs this year. The deposit is open along strike and at depth. The company plans to release an initial resource estimate by early next year.

Growth platform

Last year, Kainantu produced 117,607 oz. gold equivalent, including 100,533 oz. gold, 7.7 million lb. copper, and 160,628 oz. silver, beating guidance of 111,000 to 116,000 gold equivalent ounces. It forecasts 2024 output at about 130,000 oz. gold equivalent at the midpoint.

K92 released updated resource estimates for Kora and Judd deposits in December. Kora’s measured and indicated resource now stands at 6.9 million tonnes grading 10.24 grams gold equivalent per tonne, up 8% from 2.1 million oz. in October 2021. Its inferred grew to 14.3 million tonnes at 8.6 grams per tonne for 3.9 million oz., a 58% jump, thanks to drilling along the deposit’s southern extensions of the K1 and K2 lodes.

Judd’s measured and indicated resource increased to 1.2 million tonnes at 8.7 grams gold equivalent for 350,000 oz., a 167% rise from the Dec. 2021 estimate. The inferred resource tripled to 2.3 million tonnes grading 7.7 grams gold equivalent per tonne for 560,000 oz., driven by more drilling and a 130% increase in the strike length since the end of 2021.

Kainantu has measured and indicated resources of 8.7 million tonnes at 10.2 grams gold equivalent per tonne, or 2.9 million ounces. It also has inferred resources of 17.1 million tonnes at 8.6 grams per tonne, or 4.7 million ounces.

The company’s Toronto-quoted shares last traded down 1% at C$9.37, having touched C$4.64 and C$9.90 over the past 12 months. It has a market capitalization of C$2.2 billion.

The 2024 drill program at Nelligan extended the deposit eastward below 500 metre vertical depth and confirmed the increasing width of the Footwall zone forming the north part of the mineralized sequence, the company said.

Infill and/or expansion drilling is planned depending on the updated resource estimate. Metallurgical tests and other engineering studies are also planned.

“The results today from Nelligan demonstrate the potential for expansion of what is a large-scale asset located in a great mining jurisdiction of Canada. Our current priority continues to be the safe and stable ramp up and growth of Côté Gold,” said Iamgold CEO Renaud Adams.

“While we look forward to the updated mineral resource estimate for Nelligan early next year to build off the current estimate of approximately 2 million indicated gold ounces and 4 million ounces of inferred mineral resources.”

Iamgold issued at the same time an updated resource estimate for its Monster Lake gold project, located 15 km north of Nelligan. The indicated resource is 239,000 tonnes averaging 11.0 g/t gold for 84,200 contained oz. The inferred resource is 1.1 million tonnes grading 14.4 g/t gold for 488,500 contained oz.

The numbers represent the upgrade of 84,200 oz. into indicated from the inferred designation. The inferred resource was also upsized by 32%.

Spot gold dropped 1.0% to $2,718.79 an ounce by 12:10 p.m. ET after briefly hitting an all-time high of $2,758.25 in the morning trading. US gold futures also fell 1.0% to $2,734.00 an ounce in New York.

Bullion was down as much as 1.5% earlier in the session, with some traders exiting positions amid signs that the precious metal’s recent rally to successive highs may be excessive.

Gold’s relative strength index has been above the overbought level of 70 for the past three sessions, according to Bloomberg data.

A stronger US dollar and rising bond yields also weighed on the metal, whose price has surged by more than 30% in anticipation of the Federal Reserve’s pivot to interest rate cuts. The rally also intensified as uncertainties surrounding the US presidential race and the Middle East conflict grew.

Standard Chartered analyst Suki Cooper expects further upside risk in the coming weeks. The bank sees gold averaging $2,800 an ounce in the fourth quarter, with prices set to average $2,900 for the first three months of next year.

Analysts from Citi Research have a similar outlook. The bank recently upgraded its three-month gold price view to $2,800 per ounce from $2,700 previously, adding that its 6- to 12-month forecast is $3,000.

(With files from Bloomberg)

The find, called the Ramp zone, lies in the Apollo system of the project in the country’s central Caldas department. Drill hole APC99-D5 is the first intercept into a major new high-grade gold system at depth that can be classified as a partially reduced intrusion related gold-silver-copper system, the company said on Wednesday.

The hole cut 57.7 metres grading 7.83 grams gold per tonne, 33 grams silver, 0.09% copper and 0.12% zinc from 811.3 metres depth, Collective said in a release. The hold included 18.9 metres at 19.39 grams gold, 83 grams silver, 0.21% copper and 0.16% zinc.

“Right at the end of the hole we entered a fantastic zone,” David Reading, special advisor to Collective, says in a new video. “It’s clearly a new high-grade discovery.”

Higher up in the same hole, the assay showed 517.4 metres grading 1.84 grams gold, 10 grams silver, 0.03% copper an 0.06% zinc from 351.6 metres depth, the company said. That included 31.3 metres at 3.24 grams gold, 16 grams silver, 0.05% copper and 0.04% zinc.

The closest hole to the high-grade intercept is about 480 metres away, suggesting there is room for lateral expansion, BMO Capital Markets mining analyst Andrew Mikitchook wrote in a note to clients this morning.

“We expect the market to react positively to this intercept as we look forward to more deep drill holes at Apollo to confirm the scale and grade of this new discovery,” he said.

The new discovery, named “Ramp Zone,” is close in elevation (1,150m) to a planned underground haulage tunnel, Mikitchook added.

“This access tunnel connects Apollo and other targets (Plutus, Trap and Tower) to mining-related infrastructure in a potential development scenario. Although it is too early for any engineering plans, accessing high-grade portions of the orebody earlier should improve the economics of the project.”

Collective shares hit a new 52-week high of C$5.41 in morning trading before easing to C$5.10. The shares have traded as low as C$3.02 in the past year. The company’s market cap sits at C$348 million.

Gold district

Guayabales and Aris Mining’s (TSX: ARIS; NYSE: ARMN) neighbouring Marmato mine are part of a precious metal district of 10 operating mines in Colombia’s Middle Cauca mineral belt. Toronto-based Collective, founded by the same team that developed and sold Continental Gold for C$1.4 billion, posted drill results in August joining the Apollo and Olympus deposits. The project delivered the top gold assay in The Northern Miner’s weekly Drill Down several times this year.

“The fact that Apollo is now transitioning into a bulk zone of high-grade gold mineralization at depth is extremely exciting and will no doubt add materially to the mineral resource endowment of Apollo,” executive chairman Ari Sussman said. “The Apollo system, which outcrops at surface, now boasts a vertical dimension of approximately 1,150 metres with further expansion dead-ahead.”

Collective also reported strong results this year at Guayabales’ Trap area, 3.5 km northeast of Apollo. It has five rigs, two each at Trap and Apollo and another at the X target, for a 40,000-metre drill program this year. The company began the project in September 2021 and has not published a resource yet.

The primary objective of the program was to infill the near-surface inferred resources that define the up-dip extension of RPM North core zone, a high-grade discovery located in the southern part of the Estelle project area. Previous drilling at RPM North returned gold grades as high as 11.1 grams per tonne.

The secondary objective was to extend drilling from current RPM North resource and test a potential link with the newly discovered RPM Valley zone situated 150 metres to the southwest. Previous drilling indicated that the RPM North deposit remains wide open to that direction.

Backed by the latest drill results, Nova considers the 2024 program to have accomplished both objectives. In particular, it was able to extend the RPM North core zone to surface with over 20 board intercepts from grading over 5 g/t gold and a high of 52.7 g/t. Highlighting the new results was one intercept of 29 metres at 7.1 g/t from surface.

“The 2024 drill results have confirmed a broad zone of high-grade mineralization starting at surface at RPM North. This should prove positive for our upcoming studies focused on executing our current strategy to fast track development of RPM as a scale-able low capex/high margin starter operation,” Nova Minerals CEO Christopher Gerteisen said in a news release.

The new results, combined with that from last year’s program, are expected to support Nova’s mineral resource update for RPM North due later this year, as well as the pre-feasibility study that is underway. Nova anticipates that the 2023-24 drilling will “add significant ounces” to the measured and indicated categories, which currently total 330,000 oz. at 2.4 g/t.

The company is looking to commence the starter mine at RPM as soon as possible to generate cash flow for the larger 500 km² Estelle project located along Alaska’s Tintina gold belt. An updated economic study is currently being prepared for the project, which comprises four deposits across two main areas (Korbel and RPM). Their combined resources in all categories are estimated at 1.1 billion tonnes grading 0.3 g/t for 9.9 million oz.

According to Gerteisen, the Estelle project remains one of the largest undeveloped gold projects in the world, with significant upside remaining with gold, antimony, copper, silver and other critical elements.

Nova Minerals’ stock rose 11.3% by 11:45 a.m. ET on the Nasdaq following the new drill results. The company’s market capitalization is just under $40.6 million.

If implemented, the rule change could disrupt the annual shipment of billions of dollars of gold ore and concentrate to China, the world’s top refined gold producer.

Gold ore and concentrate imports to China do not currently attract import or value added tax (VAT).

Now Chinese customs are planning to identify gold concentrate containing a combined iron and sulphur content of more than 58% as pyrite, which is subject to a 1% import tax and 13% VAT, the sources said.

Shipments of precious metals ore and concentrate excluding silver to China hit a six-month low in September, trade data showed. It dropped 22.4% to 201,004.9 metric tons from August, which was when Chinese customs revealed its plans, the sources said.

Gold ore and concentrate is the biggest chunk of this category, the sources said.

Chinese customs did not respond to requests for comment.

Higher taxes on gold concentrate and ore imports would squeeze trading margins, two of the sources said, adding that sellers of these products already faced a difficult market over the past couple of months due to the gold price rally.

Some traders have diverted their gold concentrate shipments to destinations other than China for fear of retrospective taxation, one of the sources said.

China’s gold concentrate importers expressed their opposition at a meeting in late September but customs staff refused to withdraw the proposal, the two sources said.

Supplies of industrial metals such as copper could also be impacted in China. Peru, the world’s third largest copper producer, exports a sizeable amount of copper-bearing gold concentrate, used as feedstock by some Chinese copper smelters.

If the changes to classification go ahead, Peru’s copper-bearing gold concentrate may be diverted to other countries and exacerbate a mined copper shortage in China, the sources said.

(By Julian Luk and Amy Lv; Editing by Pratima Desai and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

Shares were up 7.3% at £2.50 each in early morning trading in London, stabilizing by mid-afternoon at around £2.38 each, leaving the company with a market capitalization of £1.24 billion ($1.6bn).

The South America-focused miner said it mined 16% more gold and silver in the third quarter of the year than it did in the same period of 2023, with 96,327 ounces on a gold-equivalent basis. The company uses equivalent ounces to reflect an amalgamation of both gold and silver production.

Gold production in the three months to the end of September increased 40%, boosted by the continuing ramp up of its Mara Rosa mine in Brazil, which started production early this year.

Output from the company’s flagship Inmaculada mine in Peru rose 6%, resulting from the implementation of continuous improvement projects at site. This increase helped offset a silver production fall of 17%.

Strong gold and silver prices boosted Hochschild’s cash flow, helping the miner to pay down $45 million of its net debt in the quarter.

“Hochschild Mining’s third quarter has been the strongest in almost five years,” chief executive officer Eduardo Landin said in a statement.

The company reaffirmed its annual production and cost targets, anticipating output of 343,000 to 360,000 gold equivalent ounces at all-in sustaining costs of $1,510-1,550 per gold equivalent ounce.

Hochschild Mining has operations in Peru, Argentina and Brazil and development projects in Chile and Peru.

After receiving the last permit needed in August, the Canadian companies have focused on preparing to begin early works, with first production expected by the end of 2026.

“Early works will take place from November to the end of the year with construction expected to start after the rainy season in the area, towards the second quarter,” Salazar Resources president and chief executive Fredy Salazar told BNamericas on Wednesday.

Construction of the project has been delayed on various occasions due to mining rules changes in the Andean country, legal challenges, and the takeover of one of the project’s owners — Adventus Mining.

Located about 150 km northeast of Guayaquil, the Curipamba-El Domo asset spans seven concessions over 21,500 hectares. It was originally owned by Salazar in partnership with Adventus Mining, which was acquired by Silvercorp Metals (TSX: SVM) (NYSE: SVM) in July.

Construction will be fully funded from Silvercorp’s existing cash balance combined with a $175.5 million streaming deal Adventus had signed with Wheaton Precious Metals in 2022.

The mine is considered one of the highest grade and lowest capital intensive copper-gold projects globally, and the next big mine in Ecuador after Mirador, run by China-backed Ecuacorriente, and Lundin Gold’s (TSX: LUG) Fruta del Norte.

The $250-million project is protected by an investment contract with the Ecuadorian government that grants it several incentives, such as reductions in income tax, exemption of import duties and tax stability until March 2033.

The country’s government anticipates generating over $4 billion in annual mining exports by 2025, with four new operations coming online before the end of President Guillermo Lasso’s term, including the Cascabel copper-gold project operated by Australia’s SolGold (LON, TSX: SOLG).

The report pinned the after-tax net present value at $222 million (at a 5% discount rate) and gave a 40% internal rate of return. The company, with a market cap of C$100 million, says it expects the $87 million mine to achieve payback within two years.

“With such positive parameters, we are confident we will be able to advance the project very quickly,” CEO Glenn Jessome said in a news release.

Shares in the Halifax, Nova Scotia-based company plunged 15.5% Tuesday to C$0.275, ranging between C$0.135 and C$0.355 over the past 12 months. But Jessome said management now has a “clear path” to making a construction decision.

Silver Tiger plans to develop a modest, open pit, heap-leach mine at El Tigre. The 10 year mine plan will see El Tigre in total produce 8.6 million oz. silver and 408,000 oz. gold. The project is expected to generate an undiscounted after-tax cash flow of $318 million over its life.

The report estimates all-in sustaining costs of $14.40 per silver-equivalent ounce.

The open-pit design benefits from a low strip ratio of 1.7:1 and mineralization averages 48 grams silver-equivalent per tonne in the pit from surface, enabling efficient operations. Initial processing capacity will start at 7,500 tonnes per day, but a $15 million expansion could see it scaling up to 15,000 tonnes per day by year four.

The prefeasibility study was based on the Stockwork Zone outlined in an accompanying resource update using $26 per oz. silver and $2,159 per oz. gold. The new El Tigre resource estimate holds 61.8 million tonnes of oxide and sulphide material in the measured and indicated categories. It grades 16 grams silver per tonne for 31.3 million oz. of metal, and 0.4 gram gold for 778,000 oz. of contained gold.

Underground upside

The project also holds an out-of-pit measured and indicated resource of 5.3 million tonnes at 255 silver-equivalent for 44 million oz., and 10.1 million tonnes inferred at 216 grams silver-equivalent for 70 million ounces. Jessome says the company plans to wrap an initial economic assessment around the deposit in the first half of next year.

Silver Tiger believes critical mass for the underground project means hitting an exploration target of 10 to 12 million tonnes at 225 to 265 grams of silver equivalent for 73 to 100 million silver-equivalent ounces.

This near-mine underground resource provides long-term resource upside, coupled with the fact that only 30% of the 284 sq. km property has been explored. The company plans to begin underground drilling immediately.

Bullion hit an all-time high of $2,748.36 an ounce, topping Monday’s record. Traders have flocked to the market amid a tight US presidential vote and persistent concern that violence in the Middle East may escalate into a wider war. The sentiment spilled over to the silver market, with prices of the white metal climbing for its sixth-straight session to within striking distance of $35 an ounce.

Robust central-bank buying and expectations of US interest-rate cuts have also underpinned gold’s 33% run this year. Federal Reserve officials continue to opine on the path forward, with Jeffrey Schmid favoring a slower pace of rate reductions and Mary Daly forecasting more cuts.

“Haven demand amid heightened geopolitical risks, as well as uncertainty ahead of the US election in November, have also supported gold’s record-breaking rally,” ING Bank NV wrote in a note.

While the outcome of the US election remains uncertain, Saxo Bank A/S Head of Commodity Strategy Ole Hansen suggests gold and silver are getting caught up in bets of a Republican victory.

Meanwhile, money managers have increased net-long positions in gold, while investors have added to holdings in exchange-traded funds. Citigroup Inc. analysts boosted their three-month price forecast by 3.7% to $2,800 an ounce amid expectations that further labor-market deterioration will drive demand.

Spot gold rose 1% to $2,746.41 an ounce at 2:01 p.m. in New York. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was little changed. Palladium, platinum and silver all gained.

(By Jack Wittels and Yvonne Yue Li)

Graphic: Gold’s allure spreads as bulls lock in on fresh records