Gold

TD Securities Head of Commodity Strategy, Bart Melek Monday predicted "gold will trade materially above the $1,500/oz mark sometime in the second half of 2011." "Despite recent strength and record prices, TDS analysis points to more upside for gold into 2011," Melek advised.

As the extent and depth of its low-grade gold project Cerro Maricunga grows, so follows Atacama Pacific Gold's (TSX-V: ATM) shareprice. Since the start of the year the latter has climbed from around $3 a share to just over $5 as Atacama released a slew of drill intercepts outlining three, semi-contiguous areas of gold mineralization at Cerro Maricunga, 100-km northeast of Copiapo, Chile

Russia's biggest gold miner Polyus Gold (PLZL.MM: Quote), KazakhGold KZJq.L and the Assaubayev family have settled all legal claims brought against the Assaubayevs, all parties said on Monday.

Egypt has lifted a ban on the export of gold due to increasing economic and political stability, the government said in a statement on Saturday. The government decided on Feb. 27 to ban exports of gold until June 30 -- a decision which the statement issued on Saturday said was aimed at "guarding Egyptian national security and to stop smuggling of the country's wealth abroad".

Gold Fields GFIJ. said on Friday that its attributable group production for the March quarter was expected to decline from the previous quarter to about 830,000 ounces. "As expected production is lower than that achieved in the previous quarter (900,000 ounces), almost entirely due to the customary Christmas break in South Africa, when all mines close for two weeks," it said in a brief guidance for investors.

Newmont Mining Corp , the second-largest gold producer in the world, plans to link its dividend to gold prices, and said it will target to raise production of the precious metal by more than a third by 2017. Denver-based Newmont's shares, which have trailed the Arca Gold Bugs Index since the beginning of the year, rose 4 percent to $58.72 in early trade.

Gunmen killed two workers on Thursday at Freeport-McMoran Copper & Gold Inc's giant gold mine in Indonesia's Papua, a province with a simmering separatist movement. A Freeport company spokesman said the shooting by unidentified gunmen, which left the car the two workers were in a blazing wreck, did not affect production at the world's largest gold mine.

Ivernia Inc said it expects to place its flagship lead mine in western Australia under full care and maintenance for an indefinite period and lay off about 83 percent of related workforce amid environmental concerns surrounding the mine, sending its shares down 23 percent to a nine-year low.

Toronto-listed Premier Gold Mines has nearly tripled gold resources at its 70%-owned Hardrock Project in northwestern Ontario, Canada. An updated NI 43-101 report by Micon International Limited shows a 269% increase in measured and indicated resources to 2.5 million ounces, and a 164% increase in inferred resources to 1.1 million ounces.