Gold

A strike paralyzing production at Freeport Indonesia's Grasberg mine, one of the world's largest sources of copper and gold, will extend into a second week after talks broke down between the company and workers, a union official said on Friday. The union, which represents 8,000 workers who have been on strike since Monday, asked U.S.-based Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold (FCX.N) to send Chairman James Moffett to the remote Indonesian mine to negotiate.

Plans for a huge gold mine near Kershaw have been delayed for at least a year because of the mine's potential effect on creeks and wetlands that run through the site in Lancaster County. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will conduct an environmental impact statement before it decides on a wetlands permit for Romarco Minerals Inc., which wants to create the largest gold mine east of the Mississippi River. Image of the Haile gold mine site, by Romarco Minerals.

Debt-saddled Greece has a new revenue source in the form of two gold mines that have been approved by the country's environment minister, George Papaconstantinou, FT reported on Friday. The newspaper said that European Goldfields has received final approval to build two large gold mines in northern Greece, named Olympias and Skouries, near Thessaloniki. The AIM-listed miner plans to spend $500 million to build the mines and a total of 1.3 billion euros throughout the life of the mines.

South Africa’s Pilanesberg Platinum announced on Friday a labour dispute has been settled and mining operations will resume next week after a two-week shutdown after employees of a contractor disrupted operations through intimidation of supervisors and damage to property and equipment. The share traded up almost 2% in afternoon trade but the company worth some $510m has lost more than a tenth of its value on the Toronto bourse since halting operations and is down close to 50% over the last twelve months.

SFGate reports China's asset managers, who have been approved to raise $70 billion for allocation overseas, are seeking additional funds to invest in gold and precious metals as soaring inflation spurs interest in alternative assets as a way to protect wealth. Five companies have been approved this year to raise cash for investment in precious metals products overseas via the qualified domestic institutional investors program, said Hu Miao, an analyst at Shanghai-based fund research firm Z-ben Advisors Ltd. Twenty more applications for resources and commodity investment are pending, said Hu.

Gold's performance has eclipsed that of gold mining stocks this year, but gold equities now are likely to take the upper hand as the flow of cheap U.S. cash slows and miners boast juicy margins and good growth prospects. Gold's status as a quasi-currency and safe haven has helped pushed the price of the metal up about 20 percent since the start of the year to above $1,520 an ounce, making it one of the top performing asset classes of 2011.

Gold's performance has eclipsed that of gold mining stocks this year, but gold equities now are likely to take the upper hand as the flow of cheap US cash slows and miners boast juicy margins and good growth prospects. Gold's status as a quasi-currency and safe haven has helped pushed the price of the metal up about 20 per cent since the start of the year to above $US1,520 an ounce, making it one of the top performing asset classes of 2011.

Gold Fields’ attributable group production for the June quarter is expected to be around 872,000 gold equivalent oz, up 5% from 830,000 gold equivalent oz in Q1, the South African miner said Tuesday. During Q2, production from the country’s South Africa region was affected by six public holidays as well as two significant seismic-related accidents at the Kloof Driefontein Complex mine, which resulted in production stoppages due to safety interventions, the company said.

The destruction of Mongolia's grasslands to access a wealth of mineral riches has sparked an anti-mining movement led by a nomadic herder who says force can be used to bring polluting firms to heel. Tsetsegee Munkhbayar is the head of Fire Nation, a small group on a crusade to put an end to what they say are irresponsible mining operations in the resource-rich landlocked country that are threatening their livelihoods.