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As Gold Prices Fluctuate Economist Predicts "Gold prices could reach $850 per ounce"
As Gold Prices Fluctuate Economist Predicts "Gold prices could
reach $850 per ounce"
By John Hurst Gold-MiningStocks.com December 2005
Gold prices may achieve historic highs in the coming months,
aided by a decline in the United States dollar, only marginal
increases in mine production and a steady deregulation of gold
buying in the major Asian countries. This puts an estimated
2,000 junior gold exploration companies in an excellent position
to attract increasing investment dollars from the major gold
producers. Martin Murenbeeld, chief economist of the Dundee
Group of Companies with a specialty in gold, has no trouble
believing the price of gold will reach $850. "We're probably in
a period of time," he said recently, "that is a little bit like
1934, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt revalued the gold
price from $20.67 to $35 an ounce and a little bit like 1971,
when President Richard M. Nixon took the dollar off the gold
standard, which allowed the gold price to float freely. We're in
what I believe what could possibly be a fundamental shift in the
gold market, which makes a particular price target very
difficult to anticipate. The best one can say is that the gold
price is going to go higher on an irregular basis." Murenbeeld
said five broad reasons convince him of a gold price rise ahead.
The first is a longstanding relationship between the U.S. dollar
and the gold price. "The U.S. dollar must inevitably decline
against many of the overseas currencies," he said. "It should
also decline against the Euro, which is tough to argue because
in France they may charge $10 for a cup of coffee, leaving you
to wonder why the Euro is so expensive. The reality, however, is
we don't trade cups of coffee; what the U.S. and Europe actually
trade leaves the US with a $120 billion trade deficit with
Europe. The dollar is accordingly overvalued against the Euro,
and it has to go down a lot against the Asian currencies as
well." Next, the impending retirement of the baby boom
generation will aggravate the huge budget deficits of
governments. Murenbeeld believes governments will have to decide
how to deal with past promises they made to the boomers in their
youth - particularly regarding pension and health. Great Britain
currently is dealing with a proposal that its national
retirement age be pushed back to 68. "The governments could
renege on these promises and they could raise taxes. But this
will have the net effect of slowing economic growth. And that
brings the monetary authorities into play: if economic growth is
slow, the monetary authorities are likely to keep interest rates
low. In other words, we're likely to see easier monetary
policies. And that raises the specter of monetary authorities
directly or indirectly validating these promises through the
printing press. And this would be a huge development for gold."
Murenbeeld said that mine supply is unlikely to rise in the near
future. "Our models show that there is a huge lag between the
price of gold and mine output, because of permitting and the red
tape, the finding of gold, etc. It takes a long time for high
gold prices to stimulate actual output. Furthermore, the gold
price at the moment is, believe it or not, still below the
average gold price since 1970, in today's dollars. The price
from 1970 to now is about $540 in today's currency. So miners
are not yet getting the average gold price, but they're
certainly feeling it on the cost side. So the margins in the
mining industry are still fairly narrow and this is one of the
things that is holding up rallies in gold equities. From a
miner's perspective, the gold price really isn't that high yet;
so all of that argues for no significant increase in mine
supply." With respect to the demand side, he added that new
commodity exchanges are opening up. Probably the most noteworthy
one is the Dubai commodity exchange, just opened on Nov. 22,
2005. "Dubai postures itself as 'the city of gold'. It was
historically the staging centre of gold smuggled to India, so
Dubai has a long history in the gold market. Dubai wants again
to become a major gold centre in the world, serving the Middle
and Far East. The largest bullion traders live in the Middle
East, furthermore, and a Dubai commodity exchange is more
efficient for them. The commodity exchange is also in a time
zone that is more attractive for Asian traders." he said. All of
this argues that the demand curve is shifting outward. Asian
countries are also getting richer. Murenbeeld says the two
countries that are very interested in gold, India and China, are
growing by leaps and bounds. "When you make it easier for
consumers and investors to buy gold, when there are better
channels of distribution, like advertising, it helps gold demand
at any given price level." Analyst Lawrence Roulston pointed out
in an InvestorIdeas.com interview recently that the gold mining
industry in general is producing about 80 million ounces of gold
a year and it's a challenge for the large mining companies to
replace that many ounces. "The small companies," Roulston said,
"have always been the most successful explorers and generally,
in any industry, it's the small companies, the entrepreneurs,
that make the discoveries and the innovations. A lot of the best
mine-finding talent in the industry is in the hands of the
juniors and there was a big move, from the majors to the
juniors, back in that quiet period when the gold price was down
and the big companies cut their exploration budgets. "A lot of
talented people who were cut loose by the majors ended up in the
juniors and once they became shareholders in the companies and
realized the extent of the rewards they could achieve as
shareholders as opposed to collecting a salary, it was difficult
to get those people back into the larger companies. So the
juniors are way out in front in terms of exploration potential.
They've got a lot of good projects and they are moving those
projects along, so a lot of discoveries have been made."
Roulston suggested that people thinking of investing in resource
companies develop a knack for patience. He said too many
investors look for a major news release that announces a massive
discovery. "But discovery is really more a process than it is an
event. It's not a single drill hole, but it's a long process
that can extend along for months or even for a couple of years,"
he stated. "There are many companies right now that have very
substantial discoveries that are evolving through that
exploration cycle and even after a discovery has been made and
quantified at the first level of quantification (what we call an
inferred resource) there's still tremendous potential to enhance
value for shareholders to make value out of that process.
Typically, an inferred resource is valued at about $10 per ounce
of gold
in the ground. Goldfields recently bid for Bolivar and
that deal involves a purchase price that works out to US$94 per
total ounce of resource - a mix of measured, indicated and
inferred - so you can see a tenfold potential even after a
discovery is made and quantified at the first level." With the
rise in gold prices, mining major Goldcorp Inc. (TSX: G, NYSE:
GG) has increased dramatically in size and importance over the
past four years. "The gold market has been extremely good to all
of us over the past 12 months. It's gone up $80 or $90 from a
year ago. So that part's been terrific. Of course, in a
situation like ours, when you're trying to grow by acquisition,
as the price of gold goes up, the asking price for assets also
goes up. It gets more challenging to be able to find acquisition
opportunities that are going to really create value for you and
your shareholders," said Goldcorp president Ian Telfer. "The
second challenge is certainly true that with the mining industry
booming all over the world and really having gone through 25
years of middling to poor prices, less people went into it and
therefore there is a shortage of people of skilled technical
experience across the board." Telfer said the mining boom not
only caught the industry but also the equipment makers a bit off
balance, causing delays when ordering equipment. "In our
particular case, we haven't been hit by the equipment one but we
can certainly feel wage pressures when you're looking for
qualified people. In the past, basically mining engineers and
geologists really didn't have a lot of choices job-wise or
career-wise and that kept the salaries under control. But now,
they do have a lot of choices. You can pick mines that are
closer to civilization or mines or climates where they want to
work, so if you have an operation in a remote location with a
difficult climate, with four meters of rain or 40 below in the
arctic, you're going to have a challenge filling all of your
spots with the kind of people you'd like to get." He added, "I'm
very optimistic. The Wheaton-Goldcorp story has been one of
rapid acquisition of assets and the reason we were in such a
hurry was because we were pretty confident that the price of
gold was going to go up to $500 and so now we're very glad we've
built the company to the size we have, so quickly, because here
comes the price. We're very pleased. Four years ago, Wheaton
River had no reserves and no production and now the same
management team is running Goldcorp and assuming the Placer
transaction goes through as planned, our production next year
will be two million ounces. To do all that in four years has
been fantastic." Newmont Mining Corp. (NYSE: NEM) (T: NMC), in
Denver, is the world's largest gold producer. Its director of
public affairs and communications, Heatheryn Higgins, commented,
"We believe current account and budget deficits will continue to
weigh on the dollar over time. We continue to believe that a
weaker trade-weighted dollar will likely support a rising gold
price...we expect to produce 8.6 million consolidated ounces of
gold this year. Therefore, on an annualized basis, our
consolidated gold revenues increase by $215 million for each $25
increase in the gold price. "Higher sustained gold prices in
turn lead to a more robust portfolio of exploration and
development projects." Terry Tucker is President and CEO of
StrataGold Corporation (TSX: SGV) a gold development company
that spent over Cdn $8 million in 2005, exploring two advanced
gold projects - Dublin Gulch, Yukon, Canada and Tassawini,
Guyana. He said the company's exploration results were good and
its market capitalization has doubled since May. Yet even
success comes with its challenges. Tucker noted, "The real
challenge facing a company like StrataGold is a shortage of
qualified labor, for example, getting the attention of
independent consultants to do our resource estimates. That's a
real problem; engineering groups around the world are extremely
busy and to get their attention is very difficult. There is no
problem for them to be working with the majors on billion-dollar
projects, but now, I need a resource done and I can't get a
person to do it. I cannot get out a news release because it's
difficult to get someone to do a resource estimate for us in a
timely manner." "It's definitely a healthy situation in the
market for all the industry, with gold doing what it's doing. I
feel that it's going to become even more difficult to advance
projects." Tucker said that it's also very difficult to find
drilling equipment and the drillers to operate them. "With
regards to professional staff, such as geologists, there's a
real shortage of quality people out there. We've had to hire
people away from other companies. But with our share price and
the success StrataGold has achieved, we have been able to
attract good talent. It's been a challenge, but it's been one
that we've been able to overcome." For Montreal-based Cambior
Inc. (TSX, AMEX: CBJ), the gold market in the past few months
has had its share of challenges and achievements. Spokesman
Martin Amyot said a previous upward trend in the gold price was
offset by costs that increased just as much: "The impact of both
the Canadian dollar and the price of gold in the summer months
has affected the increase in the price of gold. With the
Canadian dollar and the price of gold more stable, the company
should be in a better position to benefit from the recent
increase in the fold price." Amyot said Cambior is moving
forward with a new project in French Guyana, called Camp Cayman,
and its Rosebel plant in Suriname is delivering to the firm's
expectations. Its Canadian operations should now benefit from
the rise in gold prices. "So, that's good news," he said.
Lori McClenahan, president of Vancouver-based St. Elias Mines
(TSX.V: SLI), said her company has stayed with the gold market
all along, despite its downturns.
"We came public in March, 1997," she said. "And if you remember,
Bre-X was exposed as a scam just then. Gold went down and then
the dot.coms took over and no one wanted to touch the mining
juniors. And then, all the mining juniors were doing deals with
dot.coms. But we stuck it out and stayed the whole time and put
together a great bunch of properties. We even raised money when
no one else could and certainly have great properties because of
it."
John Hurst
John Hurst has focused on marketing and communications for
public and private companies in the United States and Canada.
Disclaimer: www.InvestorIdeas.com/About/Disclaimer.asp
©Copyright InvestorIdeas 2005
About the author:
John Hurst has focused on marketing and communications for
public and private companies in the United States and Canada.
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