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Strategies & Market Trends : MARKET INDEX TECHNICAL ANALYSIS - MITA -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: leum who wrote (7916)	5/28/2001 9:21:44 PM
From: J.T.	Respond to of 19219

I will cut and paste for the archives... Thanks Dave Top Financial News - from Bloomberg Mon, 28 May 2001, 2:47pm EST Gold Production Growth to Slow on Low Prices, AME Analyst Says By Dudley White Sydney, May 28 (Bloomberg) -- Global growth in gold output is likely to slow during the next three years as a 30 percent drop in prices since 1996 leads to the closure of higher costs mines in South Africa and North America, an analyst said. Growth in production is set to slow to less than 1 percent a year in the next three years from an average 2.2 percent during the 1990s, AME Mineral Economics analyst Trevor Woolfe said in a report. Output will fall in 2003 and 2004, he said. Gold prices in February dropped close to their lowest level since 1979 as central banks sold their reserves of the metal and mining companies sold future production to protect themselves from further declines. Slowing growth in output ``is a function of the lower gold price making higher cost mines less economic,'' Woolfe said in an interview. ``We're going to see a few mines go by the wayside.'' South Africa is the world's biggest gold producing nation, followed by the U.S., Australia and Canada. Most of the mine closures are likely to be in South Africa, where mining costs are the highest in the world, and in North America, Woolfe said. Low prices have already led to some mines being shut. Gold Fields Ltd., the world's third-biggest producer, said this month it will close its St. Helena mine in South Africa after low gold prices caused third-quarter profit to drop 14 percent. Harmony Gold Mining Co. said last month it would close a shaft at its Randfontein mine in South Africa. Harmony Chief Executive Bernard Swanepoel said last month that gold producers may cut 3 percent a year from supplies in order to boost prices. Production Growth Production growth will also be crimped as reserves diminish at older mines. In Australia, Normandy Mining Ltd.'s Mt. Leyshon mine was due to stop producing from its main pit in February while Kidston Gold Mines Ltd.'s Kidston mine in Queensland is due to close later this year. Gold producers are also likely to open fewer mines that can match the low costs of operations such as AngloGold Ltd. and Randgold & Exploration Ltd.'s Morila mine in Mali and AngloGold and Ashanti Goldfields Co.'s Geita mine in Tanzania, Woolfe said. ``They're good mines and they're low cost, but we don't see too many of those on the horizon,'' he said. AME is a Sydney-based independent metals research company. The report covers 1,491 tons of global mine output, or 70 percent of Western World production. ************************** Best Regards, J.T.