The Sunday Mail
GHANA is to suspend issuing new gold-prospecting permits while it carries out an audit of existing licences to free up unused concessions for prospective investors, the chief executive of the minerals commission said on Thursday.An initial 90-day moratorium on new prospecting permits will be imposed and this could be extended if necessary, commission head Tony Aubynn told Reuters. The West African state produced 4,29 million ounces (122 tonnes) of gold in 2013, down 0,7 percent from the previous year, he said. Ghana is Africa’s second biggest gold producer after South Africa. Along with other miners in west Africa Ghana was hit hard in 2013 by a slump in global gold prices.
“There is need to clean up the system because we have realised that many companies are holding on to vast concessions granted them several years ago without undertaking any prospecting work on them,” Aubynn said.
Ghana’s laws allow people prospecting for gold to hold their licences for up to three years, after which they are expected to apply for a mining lease.
“So we are saying that when you get your licence and we see you don’t do any prospecting on the land, we would have to apply the law and take it from you,” he said, adding that several companies had been holding land for more than a decade. The biggest gold miners operating in Ghana include Anglo Gold Ashanti, Newmont and Gold Fields.
Ghana should recover from the global gold downturn by 2016 when production from two new mines boosts output, Aubynn said. Australia-based Azumah Resources and Canada’s Asanko Gold have begun operations in Ghana and are expected to pour first gold by early 2016. US-listed Newmont Mining Corporation poured the first gold from its second Ghana mine last October.
“We believe that production from these three mines will not only help us to recover fully but they will also provide the needed revenues to support the country’s medium-term growth potentials,” Aubynn added.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg News reported that gold traded below US$1 300 an ounce, little changed this week (last week), as investors assessed the health of the US economy and the impact on monetary stimulus. Platinum and palladium were poised for a second week of gains. Gold has advanced 7,7 percent this year partly on tension in Ukraine and concern that the US economic recovery may be fragile.
Applications for unemployment benefits increased to 326 000 in the week ended May 17, the Labour Department said. That compares with a forecast for a gain to 310 000 in a Bloomberg survey and a drop to a seven-year low a week earlier.
“US data continues to be mixed, which doesn’t help investment decisions, and that keeps gold in a tight trading range,” said Lv Jie, a Hangzhou-based analyst at Cinda Futures Co, a unit of one of four funds in China created to buy bad debt from banks.
Gold for August delivery traded at $1 294.70 an ounce on the Comex in New York from US$1 295,20 on Thursday. Holdings in the SPDR Gold Trust, the largest exchange-traded product backed by bullion, were unchanged Thursday after sliding to 776,89 metric tonnes on May 21, the lowest since December 2008. Silver for immediate delivery declined 0,3 percent to US$19 4575 an ounce, set for a second week of gains.
Platinum slid 0,3 percent to US$1 486,68 an ounce after climbing to US$1 496,38 on Thursday, the highest level since September.
Palladium lost 0,1 percent to US$835 an ounce after reaching US$839 on Thursday, the highest price since August 2011. A strike over pay at the South African operations of Anglo American Platinum Ltd, Impala Platinum Holdings Ltd and Lonmin Plc has crippled output for almost 18 weeks.
