A busy week at the Mint, with lots more interest being shown in bullion.
We've ended the week with the big news of the Miners being trapped at the Elandsrand mine in South Africa. The good news is that everyone was evacuated safely.
The amazing news is there were more than 3000 miners trapped, larger than an average New Zealand town, hundreds of metres below ground.
This will have an impact upon the gold price (albeit possibly very minor) as it will affect supply for the next couple of months at least.
Oil has also been moving around , but it appears there may be a further reduction in the oil price next week with the announcement that some Los Angeles based refineries will come back on line after a power outage. From Reuters:
HOUSTON, Oct 4 (Reuters) - ConocoPhillips and Valero Energy Corp said on Thursday their Los Angeles-area refineries were expected to resume normal operations during the weekend after being shut Wednesday morning by a power outage.
Both Valero's 135,000 barrel per day (bpd) refinery and Conoco's 139,000 bpd refinery on Thursday were carefully working through processes to restart from cold shutdowns, company officials said.
Valero's refinery and Conoco's refinery are in Los Angeles industrial suburbs, portions of which were hit by the power outage, according to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.
Once again finance companies are hitting the news locally with another company going into recievership and the announcement that 5 Star may only pay as little as 25% back to its investors.
The upcoming wedding season in India was forecast to reach 1000 tonnes but this has been revised to break the record of 800 tonnes this year.
Central bank sales have been confirmed at 475 tonnes this year which is closer to the first years slaes under the Washington agreement.
As you are no doubt aware, one of the driving factors behind the bulish tone for Gold and Silver at the moment is the US dollar. How this impacts other economies is quite fascinating.
Some examples :Central Banks Inflation Quandary As Gold Prices in More US Interest Rate Cuts
and a more Euro centric take on the issue.
I have to admit to being a bit of an Apple Mac fan boy. But even I think this is a little too much: Introducing the Gold Macbook Pro
