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1. Gold has traded between $1,280 and $1,294 so far today…as of 7:00 am Pacific, bullion is off $7 an ounce at $1,282…both Gold and Silver have hit 3-month lows this morning with Silver slipping 16 cents to $14.95…base metals are off modestly with Copper, Nickel and Zinc at $2.92, $5.91 and $1.35, respectively…Canada’s Copper industry produces approximately 600,000 tonnes annually, roughly 3% of global supply…Imperial Metals (III, TSX), Hudbay Minerals (HBM, TSX) and Copper Mountain (CMMC, TSX) are Canadian Copper producers who have been strong market performers so far this year…Crude Oil continues to climb, up another 5 cents to $62.51 while the U.S. Dollar Index has jumped one-fifth of a point to 97.30…non-farm payrolls for March will be announced pre-market tomorrow by the Labor Department…
2. Holdings of Gold by global exchange-traded funds were nearly flat in March, rising by just 3.3 tonnes, the World Gold Council reported this morning…as of the end of the month, holdings stood at 2,482.8 tonnes…the WGC said the rise over the 1st quarter of the year was around 42 tonnes…North American ETFs collectively posted inflows of 2.5 tonnes last month while those in both Europe and Asia inched up by 0.3 tonne…the uptick in all other regions amounted to 0.2 tonne…
3. President Trump, busy on Twitter again, says the U.S. economy is very strong despite “unnecessary and destructive actions” taken by the Federal Reserve, his latest attack on the nation’s independent central bank…“Despite the unnecessary and destructive actions taken by the Fed, the Economy is looking very strong, the China and USMCA deals are moving along nicely, there is little or no Inflation, and USA optimism is very high!,” the President proclaimed on Twitter…Trump has departed from the practice of recent previous administrations of not commenting on Fed interest rate policy, repeatedly criticizing the central bank (and justifiably so) for a rate-hike campaign it brought to an abrupt end last month…several Fed officials have also been touting the underlying strength of the U.S. economy in recent remarks, arguing that a spate of weak data is likely to prove fleeting…
4. The Canadian Energy Pipeline Association and management consultancy Ernst & Young released a report yesterday that is sharply critical of regulatory overlap, uncertainty and timelines in Canada relative to the U.S., which the report states is now a more attractive place to build pipelines…the report notes that since 2016, a year after Trudeau took office, Canadian companies have submitted only 1 new project for National Energy Board (NEB) approval compared with 14 equivalent applications to the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC…the NEB proposal is an application from TransCanada to expand and de-bottleneck its Nova gas pipeline system, which is the largest natural gas pipeline network in Canada but has required maintenance to alleviate pinch points along the system…“Over the past several years there has been an increase in the volume, complexity and duplication of regulations imposed on the pipeline industry in Canada,” Ernst & Young’s Canadian Oil and gas leader Lance Mortlock wrote in the report…“This regulatory layering, along with other factors, is decreasing Canada’s competitiveness globally”…
5. Pretium Resources (PVG, TSX) is higher in early trading after releasing an updated mineral reserve and resource estimate as well as a 14-year plan for Brucejack in the Eskay Camp, saying the mine is expected to produce 525,000 ounces of Gold annually over the first 10 years at an average all-in-sustaining cost of $535 (U.S.) an ounce per year…Joseph Ovsenek, President and CEO, stated, “Since achieving production at Brucejack, we have processed over 1.5 million tonnes of ore and produced over 500,000 ounces of Gold, providing us a solid foundation of operating experience and key metrics to update the life-of-mine plan and outlook for the mine. At $1,300 Gold, Brucejack now has an estimated after-tax net present value at a 5% discount rate of $2.59 billion (U.S.) over a 14-year mine life. This is a significant increase from the 2017 estimated net present value at a 5% discount rate of $2.1 billion“…total Brucejack Proven and Probable reserves were put at 6.4 million ounces of Gold (16 million tonnes grading 12.6 g/t)…however, P&P reserve grade at the Valley of the Kings has dropped from 16.1 g/t to 13.8 g/t (a 14% cut) to account for more internal waste than was anticipated in the company’s 2016 reserve update…the NPV increase of 23% is attributable to the increase in production from 2,700 tonnes per day to 3,800 tonnes per day…
6. The Dow has jumped 121 points through the first 30 minutes of trading…in Toronto, the TSX is up just 8 points while Venture has slipped 2 points to 625 as it continues to hug its rising 50-day moving average (SMA)…National Access Cannabis (META, TSX-V) continues to show strong momentum, operationally and in the market…META has pushed above the $1 level for the first time since September…GoGold (GGD, TSX-V) has announced record production of 288,693 ounces of Silver and 1,613 ounces of Gold for 424,210 Silver equivalent ounces at its Parral Project in Mexico during the quarter ended March 31, an increase of 30% from Q4…this eclipses the previous production record of 417,191 Silver equivalent ounces set in March 2018…Brad Langille, President and CEO, stated, “Production increased each month during the quarter and the company expects that there will be continued improvement in the June 30, 2019 quarter”…
7. A Peruvian judge has ordered 3 years of jail time for 3 lawyers representing indigenous villagers who have blockaded shipments from a massive Copper mine operated by Chinese miner MMG…the ruling promises to further polarize a dispute between MMG and the Quechua-speaking village of Fuerabamba, in Peru’s southern Copper belt…villagers have demanded that their lawyers be freed before talking with the government about lifting their blockades of 2 roads that have cut off access to the Las Bambas mine, halting its exports. “I hope that the community understands we’re not against them. We’re against crime,” prosecutor Jorge Chavez Cotrina said in comments broadcast on local TV…“They can ask for whatever they want. But we have to act according to the law”…the prosecution argued the lawyers – the brothers Jorge and Frank Chavez, and Carlos Vargas – had manipulated Fuerabamba villagers into blocking a road used by Las Bambas to extort MMG, and must be held in jail because they are a flight risk…Kevin Pena, the attorney for the 3 men, denied the accusations and said their due process was being violated…Fuerabamba villagers have repeatedly denied that they were manipulated by the lawyers, saying they fairly represented them in their claim for compensation from MMG for transporting its Copper concentrates on a road that passes through the community’s farmland…at the end of a 3-day hearing in the regional capital of Cusco, Judge Patricia Valencia granted the prosecution’s request to order the lawyers to 36 months in pre-trial detention while prosecutors prepare charges against them…Fuerabamba villager Edison Vargas said the community would continue the blockades while they remained in jail…“We’ll keep up the struggle 36 months. The mine will be shuttered 36 months,” he stated…
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Jon, I think the fed in the US is doing a great job, low inflation, strong growth. It’s their job to manage things to avoid the peaks and valleys. It’s not their job to try and get the president re-elected.
Comment by Danny — April 4, 2019 @ 11:24 am
I don’t disagree with that, Danny, though the Fed did get too aggressive during the 2nd half of last year – some pushback was needed.
Comment by Jon - BMR — April 5, 2019 @ 6:10 am
No love for TPS these days. A low volume grind down.
Comment by DBReese — April 5, 2019 @ 7:33 am