Barrick appoints new exec to restart Argentine side of Pascua-Lama

The slide in the spot price of gold triggered by disappointment over the Fed's actions – or lack thereof – yesterday accelerated in Thursday trade with the precious metal giving up $50 or just over 3%.

Canada's embattled Nautilus Minerals dropped 11.5% on Wednesday after Papua New Guinea said it is within its rights to terminate a deal made last year for the development of the world's first commercial seabed mine.

Australian PanTerra Gold restarted operations at its Las Lagunas gold and silver project, in the Dominican Republic, adding that the feed issues to the Albion carbon-in-leach processing plant had been resolved.

London-based Anglo American (LSE:AAL) and Chile's state-owned Codelco have set this Friday as the deadline to resolve a dispute over billions of dollars in copper assets.

Rio Tinto Copper's Chief Executive, Andrew Harding, said the investment will secure low cost copper, gold and molybdenum production for the company in next two decades.

Canada-based Nautilus Minerals Inc. (TSX:NUS)(OTCQX:NUSMF)(AIM:NUS) said Monday that despite several meetings with Papua New Guinea's government representatives in the last two weeks, the company is still battling authorities in regards to its obligation to complete the agreement reached in March last year for Nautilus Solwara 1 copper project.

"Natural resources companies with a pipeline of, say, five projects in five different countries are now likely to build just two or three of those. Thus, executives have the power to cherry pick which combination of country and project offers the best returns."

The three losing bids were all from the US and the deal marks a decisive shift in the commodities trading business away from Chicago and London to Asia.

John Macken, who recently gave up being president of Ivanhoe Mines, was BC’s top paid executive and brought home a total $23.358 million […]