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Gold/Mining/Energy : Gold Price Monitor -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: long-gone who wrote (30245)	3/17/1999 2:21:00 PM
From: Alex	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 116762

RENO, Nevada, Mar 17, 1999 (AP Worldstream via COMTEX) -- This week"s drop in gold prices following renewed calls for the International Monetary Fund to sell off some of its reserves are just a hint of the chilling effect such a sale would have on the metal"s already depressed prices, according to Sen. Richard Bryan. ""This is an approach that will only create new difficulties for our domestic gold mining industry,"" Bryan said Wednesday. ""It makes no sense to run the risk of sacrificing thousands of mining jobs in the United States at the expense of a misguided proposal."" Bryan, a Nevada Democrat, said gold prices, which only last week flirted with dlrs 295 an ounce, had dropped more than 3.5 percent since Thursday. They fell dlrs 3.60 to dlrs 283 an ounce on Tuesday after President Clinton added his voice to that of French President Jacques Chirac in urging the IMF to sell some of its more than 1 million stockpiled ounces. The price recovered a little over dlrs 1 Wednesday in early European trading. Chirac said on Monday the money could be used to forgive debts owed by the poorest Latin American countries that already were reeling in poverty even before they were hit by Hurricane Mitch. Clinton suggested on Tuesday that revenues from IMF gold could be used to ease the financial misery in African countries as well. Bryan, who sits on the Senate Banking Committee, has argued that the selloff could wind up hurting many of the poor countries it"s intended to help because they are significant gold producers. Mining represents 37 percent of Ghana"s exports, 36 percent of Mali"s and 24 percent of Guyana"s, according to 1997 figures. ""It is abundantly clear that if the administration and IMF carried through on this proposal, it would hurt an already injured gold mining industry,"" Bryan said. IMF spokesman William Murray said earlier that if any sale does occur, it likely would involve less than 5 million ounces and would take place gradually. ""It wouldn"t be dumped on the market. We"re not in the business of disrupting financial markets,"" he said. Bryan voiced his ongoing concerns one day after the Division of Minerals reported a record 8.86 million ounces of gold were drawn from Nevada soils in 1998, making the state the No. 3 gold producer in the world, behind South Africa and Australia. While production was up 1 million troy ounces from 1997, income remained flat at dlrs 2.6 billion because of depressed prices. Nevada mines have laid off at least 1,200 workers in the past year in an effort to streamline their operations. Copyright 1999 Associated Press, All rights reserved.