Last week’s electricity pinch in South Africa may be much more than the usual African “here today, gone tomorrow” crisis:
“The bad news out of South Africa,” reads Casey's Daily Resource PLUS, “which affected platinum mostly, will have an ongoing and profound impact on gold, as well. The country's major miners, already struggling with stagnating production, have been hit with severe power outages that have forced mine closures.
“Leading miners, including Gold Fields and AngloGold Ashanti, halted operations on Friday after the companies agreed to curtail use of electricity as the state-run utility, Eskom, struggles to generate enough power to meet the country's basic needs. There just isn't enough left over to protect workers who need all the juice they can get when toiling as deep as 2 miles down.
At least when the power goes out in our office... nobody gets killed. Holy crap.
“The present emergency is estimated by the companies to last as long as two-four weeks. All told, about 29,000 ounces of gold and 19,000 ounces of platinum production will be lost every day of the shutdown. And looking further out, Eskom flat out stated that problems will persist until ‘at least 2013.’
“The gold market hasn't even begun to contemplate what this means,” Casey concludes. “This week could be a doozy.” Look for gold to continue its march toward $1,000.
“The bad news out of South Africa,” reads Casey's Daily Resource PLUS, “which affected platinum mostly, will have an ongoing and profound impact on gold, as well. The country's major miners, already struggling with stagnating production, have been hit with severe power outages that have forced mine closures.
“Leading miners, including Gold Fields and AngloGold Ashanti, halted operations on Friday after the companies agreed to curtail use of electricity as the state-run utility, Eskom, struggles to generate enough power to meet the country's basic needs. There just isn't enough left over to protect workers who need all the juice they can get when toiling as deep as 2 miles down.
At least when the power goes out in our office... nobody gets killed. Holy crap.
“The present emergency is estimated by the companies to last as long as two-four weeks. All told, about 29,000 ounces of gold and 19,000 ounces of platinum production will be lost every day of the shutdown. And looking further out, Eskom flat out stated that problems will persist until ‘at least 2013.’
“The gold market hasn't even begun to contemplate what this means,” Casey concludes. “This week could be a doozy.” Look for gold to continue its march toward $1,000.
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