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Tuesday, 17th January 2006 (4134 views)

Gold prices are one again on the up, leading a number of US and Canadian companies to re-start production activities that were stalled in the mid-1990s, as well as investing in exploration.

Prices recently hit their highest level since 1981 in fact, leading Newmont Mining chief executive, Wayne Murdy, to predict "a good period for some number of years".

Newmont is one of the 95 per cent of companies for whom exploration budgets practically tripled ($784 million to $2.3 billion) between 2002 and 2005, according to the Akron Beacon Journal.

"I think that, based on the lack of exploration that we've seen in the last few years, that we will see high gold exploration at least being maintained for a few years", said Jason Goulden, director of corporate exploration strategies for the Metals Economics Group, who provided these figures.

In December last year Newmont opened a $220 million underground mine in northeastern Nevada, and is currently preparing for the opening of another $236 million open-pit mine in the state.

Later this year the company also plans to open another open-pit mine in Ghana, costing between $410 million and $435 million.

Mr Murdy said of Ghana: " We see real tremendous growth opportunity there."

 

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