Barrick Gold Corporation (ABX), the largest gold mining company in the world, has entered into an agreement with Xstrata Copper Chile S.A., a wholly owned subsidiary of Xstrata Plc, to acquire Xstrata’s 70% interest in the El Morro project for $465 million in cash. Another Canadian miner, New Gold Inc. (NGD) owns the remaining 30% interest in El Morro. The El Morro gold project is located in the Atacama Region in Chile. The project has total measured and indicated resources of about 8.3 million ounces of gold and about 6.3 billion pounds of copper. The acquisition will add another large, high quality gold-copper resource to Barrick’s portfolio. In Chile, Barrick already controls a project, which is entering construction, called Pascua-Lama. It also has a 50% stake in another mine, the Cerro Casale project. El Morro is located near the Pascua-Lama and Cerro Casale projects. Xstrata ...

In the mining game, price is the only consideration. How much does it cost to get the commodity out of the ground and how much can it be sold for. If the numbers don’t add up, there is no activity and no company. Some companies, however, work more efficiently than others and can get the commodity out of the ground at a lower cost. If an investor can find companies like this, there is profit to be made.

New Gold Inc., a mining development company, works to develop and exploit mineral properties primarily in Central and South America. The company also owns mining properties in Australia and Canada. In the company’s most recent quarter, it beat earnings estimates by $0.03 per share.

Although the acquisition of Western Gold Fields and the inactivity of a Canadian property that Western controlled forced a good will charge during the last quarter, the company reaffirmed that

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A gold bug who prefers equities as investments to bullion and bars, Midas Letter publisher James West expects his portfolio picks to shine to the tune of at least 15% appreciation on average. In this exclusive interview with The Gold Report, that sunny outlook stands in stark contrast to other things the well-regarded adviser sees on the horizon. He anticipates no letup in the storm of market volatility and holds out even less hope for the U.S. currency’s ability to stay afloat in a multi-trillion-dollar flood of new money.

The Gold Report: You’ve predicted that the United States’ defaulting on its debt is not just likely; it’s inevitable and imminent. Given the state of the world economy, can the federal government do anything to avoid this—and the resulting monetary collapse it would trigger?

James West: In pure theoretical terms, absolutely. Stop printing money and put the whole American system on a …