https://business.financialpost.com/
Bullion may be trading near a six-year high, but gold-mining executives keen to show they’re conscientious on costs were munching on potato salad instead of oysters at this week’s industry gathering in Denver.
As the chief executive officer of Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd., Sean Boyd, put it: “A general theme of this conference has been the need to maintain discipline.”
That sentiment was echoed in presentations, interviews and the general coffee-time chatter at the gold industry’s largest U.S. gathering of the year. There was little buzz when it came to deals, and most mining executives stressed they were making business decisions based on a gold price of US$1,200 an ounce, even as the metal traded above US$1,500.
“The message to the mines isn’t ‘It’s open season now,”‘ for ramping up output at all cost, Boyd said in a presentation at the Denver Gold Forum on Tuesday.
Gold producers are putting into practice hard lessons learned during the metal’s last bull surge. Prices in the spot market reached a record US$1,921.17 in 2011, but quickly started to collapse from the euphoria as gains in the equity market and economic growth meant the metal fell out of favour as a haven. By the end of 2015, prices had tumbled about 45 per cent.
For the rest of this article: https://business.financialpost.com/commodities/mining/pricey-gold-doesnt-mean-fancy-food-for-miners-meeting-in-denver