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India may prohibit gold coin sales by banks

Section: Daily Dispatches

Central Bank Likely to Impose Curbs on Gold Coin Sale

By Manojit Saha
Business Standard, New Delhi
Wednesday, June 27, 2012

http://business-standard.com/india/news/central-bank-likely-to-impose-cu...

MUMBAI -- The Reserve Bank of India is likely to clamp down on gold coin sales by banks, amid rising bullion imports adding pressure to the current account deficit and weakening the rupee.

The Banking Regulation Act does not allow banks to trade in commodities and they play the role of a financial intermediary. This norm was relaxed in the pre-2008 era when the country saw a dollar influx that resulted in a sharp appreciation of the rupee. To sterilise dollar inflows, banks were allowed to sell gold, as they imported the yellow metal. The measure was temporary.

"Banks were allowed to sell gold by importing it to fight the excess dollar flows. By the same logic, the measure should be reversed now as we are at the opposite end of the spectrum. It was a temporary measure, which unfortunately was made permanent by banks," a top RBI official said.

... Dispatch continues below ...



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Sona Discovers Potential High-Grade Gold Mineralization
at Blackdome in British Columbia -- 13.6g over 1.5 Meters

From a Company Press Release
November 22, 2011

VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- With its latest surface diamond drilling program at its 100-percent-owned, formerly producing Blackdome gold mine in southern British Columbia, Sona Resources Corp. has discovered a potentially high-grade gold-mineralized area, with one hole intersecting 13.6 grams of gold in 1.5 meters of core drilling.

"We intersected a promising new mineralized zone, and we feel optimistic about the assay results," says Sona's president and CEO, John P. Thompson. "We have undertaken an aggressive exploration program that has tested a number of target zones. Our discovery of this new gold-bearing structure is significant, and it represents a positive development for the company."

Sona aims to bring its permitted Blackdome mill back into production over the next year and a half, at a rate of 200 tonnes per day, with feed from the formerly producing Blackdome mine and the nearby Elizabeth gold deposit property. A positive preliminary economic assessment by Micon International Ltd., based on a gold price of $950 per ounce over eight years, has estimated a cash cost of $208 per tonne milled, or $686 per gold ounce recovered.

For the company's complete press release, please visit:

http://www.sonaresources.com/_resources/news/SONA_NR18_2011-opt.pdf



The rupee has depreciated 30 per cent since August amid the sovereign debt crisis in the euro zone, which made investors flee to safer havens. Weakening macroeconomic fundamentals like the fiscal and the current account deficit have resulted in investors pulling out from the Indian market.

In its recent interactions with bankers, the central bank sounded its discomfort over the practice of banks pushing gold coin sales and asked them to go slow. However, banks have not stopped the practice of incentivising their staff to push gold sales, as they earn a margin of Rs 100-150 per gramme of gold sold.

Gold and silver imports were around $61.5 billion as of March-end -- a growth of 44.4 per cent during 2011-12 as against 43.5 per cent in 2010-11. In 2011 India imported 969 tonnes of the yellow metal compared to 958 tonnes in the previous year, according to data compiled by the World Gold Council. In value terms, imports in 201-12 were around $60 billion. However, according to data released by the government, gold and silver imports in April and May 2012 came down sharply to $4.3 billion, compared to $9.2 billion last year.

RBI Governor D Subbarao had said earlier that the central bank was looking into the issue of rising gold imports and formed a committee headed by an executive director-rank officer to examine the reasons.

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Prophecy Platinum Announces Wellgreen Preliminary Economic Assessment:
38% Pre-Tax IRR, $3.0 Billion NPV, and a 37-Year Mine Life

Company Press Release

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Canada -- Prophecy Platinum Corp. (TSX-V: NKL, OTC-QX: PNIKF, Frankfurt: P94P) reports the results of an independent NI 43-101-compliant preliminary economic assessment for its fully owned Wellgreen nickel-copper-platinum group metals project in the Yukon Territory.

The independent assessment, prepared by Tetra Tech, evaluated a base case of an open-pit mine (with a mining rate of 111,500 tonnes per day), an on-site concentrator (with a milling rate of 32,000 tonnes per day), and an initial capital cost of $863 million. The project is expected to produce (in concentrate) 1.959 billion pounds of nickel, 2.058 billion pounds of copper, and 7.119 million ounces of platinum, palladium, and gold during a mine life of 37 years with an average strip ratio of 2.57.

The financial highlights of the preliminary economic assessment, shown in U.S. dollars, are as follows:

Payback period: 3.55 years
Initial capital investment: $863 million
IRR pre-tax (100% equity): 38 percent
NPV pre-tax (8% discount): $3 billion
Mine life: 37 years
Total mill feed: 405.3 million tonnes
Mill throughput: 32,000 tonnes per day

Prophecy Chairman John Lee says: "We are pleased with the preliminary economic assessment results. The numbers indicate that Wellgreen is one of most exciting mineral projects in the Yukon. The company is drilling to upgrade and expand the resource base. The infrastructure is excellent as the project is only 1,400 meters in altitude and 14 kilometers from the paved Alaska Highway, which leads to the Haines deep seaport. Discussions are under way with support from local stakeholders regarding permitting and logistics."

For the complete press release, please visit:

http://prophecyplat.com/news_2012_june18_prophecy_platinum_announces_res...