Ecuador court gives green light for Silvercorp, Salazar’s El Domo project
The ruling removes the last major obstacle for the $250 million project, located 150 km northeast of Guayaquil.
Gold futures ended lower in lacklustre trade on Monday, failing to recover from last weeks 3.7% sell off.
Gold for April delivery declined around $5 on the day, trading at $1,705 an ounce after hours on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The precious metal briefly sunk below the psychologically important $1,700/oz level in morning and afternoon trade.
Gold’s losses dragged down the stock of the major producers with world number one Barrick Gold falling almost 2%. Gold Fields dropped 2.6% while GoldCorp shed 2.8% and Newmont Mining gave up 1.8%.
Kinross declined 2.6% while Anglogold Ashanti came away relatively unscathed falling less than a percent in New York. After losing 2.9% on Monday Iamgold’s losses now top 18% since its update on capital projects released last week.
Last week gold registered its worst weekly performance for 2012 after a sustained rally in January and most of February.
Contract gold retreated $70/oz last week including a brutal trading day on Wednesday when the yellow metal lost almost $80/oz in an hour after a single sale order of 1 million ounces or 31 tonnes.
Some analysts argue that this week would be a crucial test for the yellow metal – a significant break below the $1,700 level could trigger a major sell-off.
