Scotiabank to offload gold trading unit

Suriname's only commercial gold mine, the Rosebel Gold Mine which is majority owned by Canada's Iamgold, has been shut down by a strike by 1,100 workers protesting new longer shift hours. Rosebel is located some 118 kilometers south of Paramaribo (pictured), the capital of the South American nation. The mine produced 395,000 ounces in 2010 at cash cost of $484 per ounce. While Rosebel is the country's only commercially operated mine, there are believed to be thousands of small scale miners operating in the tiny, impoverished country.

A strike in South Africa's gold mining sector ended on Tuesday after a 2-year wage deal was clinched, unions and the Chamber of Mines said. The strike at AngloGold Ashanti , Gold Fields and Harmony began last Thursday and halted output worth up to $25 million a day at bullion's current record prices. About 100,000 gold mine workers will to return to work, starting with the Tuesday night shift. The companies' share prices extended gains on the news as gold scaled new highs over $1,635.00 an ounce on growing concerns about Europe's debt woes and anaemic U.S. growth data.

Mexico massively ramped up its gold reserves in the first quarter of this year, buying over $4 billion of bullion as emerging economies move away from the ailing U.S. dollar, which has dipped to 2-1/2-year lows.

Putting Galore Creek into production would cost a whopping $5.2 billion in capex, NovaGold Resources said this week in announcing their prefeasibility study of the substantial copper--gold- silver project in northern British Columbia. The proposed mine, located 200 kilometres north of Stuart, BC, is 50%-owned by NovaGold and 50% by Teck Resources. Image of the proposed pit design for Galore Creek, courtesy of NovaGold Resources Resources Inc.

Gold mining in Tanzania and other East African sites is making headway with work in progress on prospecting and resource development at eight sites.

Finnish mineral processing company Outotec more than doubled its profits for the first half of 2011.

December gold futures traded at a record $1,633 on Friday morning before pulling back to the $1,625 level by early afternoon lifted by 11th hour political wrangling about the US debt plan, news that Great Recession in that country was deeper than previously thought and the Euro debt crisis spreading to Spain. Silver tracked gold with September contracts adding 48 cents, or 1.2%, to trade at $40.28 an ounce early on before slipping back to below $40 by early afternoon. The S&P 500 was poised to drop for a third straight month, the longest slump since 2008.

The United States Congress still can't pass legislation to raise the nation's debt ceiling, but a Yale Law professor suggests that President Obama could sidestep lawmakers and ensure that bills keep getting paid by minting platinum coins—about $2 trillion worth. Writing for CNN, law professor Jack Balkin outlines three ways that President Obama could keep paying the bills while congress dithers.

Investors rewarded Centerra Gold on Friday after the company reported it more than doubled net profits at $71.1 million on revenues of $243.8 million, up over 60% compared to the same quarter last year and announced a special and annual dividend payment of $99.3 million. Centerra Gold, which owns gold properties in Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia and has earn-in agreements in Nevada and Turkey, added 1% by midday Friday and was one of the few gainers among precious metals miners. Sector heavyweights Goldcorp and Kinross lost over 1.5% while Barrick was also trading weaker despite a rampant gold price.