During a recent interview in Riyadh, Barrick Gold Corp. CEO Mark Bristow stated that the price of gold would stand firm in 2022, that is if they didn’t increase, as investors would use the precious metal as a hedge against inflation, favoring it over cryptocurrencies.
Bristow stated that the most likely scenario would be gold trading between $1,750 per ounce and above $1,800, noting that the price risk for the precious metal was on the upside while the risk on the downside was minimal. Barrick Gold Corp. is the second-largest producer of gold globally, with more than 15 operating sites in 13 countries. Earlier this week, spot bullion moved to $1,808 on the London stock exchange, which is a 0.4% gain.
Bristow has been the Barrick Gold CEO for about three years now. Unlike analysts who forecast that the price of gold will decline as the Fed raises rates of interest this year, Bristow, who is also a geologist, expects it to rise significantly. A Bloomberg survey of economists and analysts forecasts that the price of gold will average about $1,683 per ounce by this year’s fourth quarter.
Since the coronavirus pandemic began in 2020, the status of the precious metal as a store of value when there was an increase in inflation has been affected greatly. Last year, the price of gold fell by more than 3.5%, even as rates of inflation around the globe rose, with various central banks and governments keeping monetary and fiscal policies loose to help stimulate their economies.
Bullion is also facing increasing competition from cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, which many investors around the globe believe are an effective hedge against inflation, with some referring to cryptocurrencies as “modern-day gold.” Recently, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. stated that Bitcoin was increasingly occupying gold’s market share as a store of value investment.
In contrast, Bristow explained that unlike cryptocurrencies, which existed in many forms and could be made, gold couldn’t be made nor printed. He noted that the market for gold was always good, especially when the world was in a dynamic period and uncertainty loomed.
The Barrick CEO is in Saudi Arabia to attend the country’s first-ever major mining conference. Barrick Gold is party to a joint venture with Ma’aden, Saudi Arabia’s state miner, which involves the mining of copper in the western region at the Jabal Sayid copper mine. The two mining companies own equal parts of the joint venture.
Bristow’s views seem to suggest that gold extraction firms such as StraightUp Resources Inc. (CSE: ST) (OTCQB: STUPF) are poised to benefit from the existing uncertainty surrounding the possible impact of the new coronavirus variants coming up every now and then, and throwing economies into a jittery mode.
NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to StraightUp Resources Inc. (CSE: ST) (OTCQB: STUPF) are available in the company’s newsroom at https://ibn.fm/STUPF
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