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by Stockwatch Business Reporter

New York spot gold closed down $3.80 to $1,291.40 Wednesday, after minutes from the United States Federal Reserve's last meeting prompted analysts to speculate upon an early interest rate hike. Here in Canada, the TSX Venture Exchange lost a fraction to 996.70 and the TSX Gold Index rose a fraction to 203.89.

Most Canadian gold miners ended the day down slightly. Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. (AEM) lost 26 cents to $42.70, Barrick Gold Corp. (ABX) slipped six cents to $20.54 and Imperial Metals Corp. (III) lost 48 cents to $9.07. Imperial's Mount Polley tailings breach is starting to spill over to at least one other proposed mine in British Columbia. Yesterday, the Ministry of Environment suspended an environmental assessment application for Pacific Booker Minerals Inc.'s (BKM: $4.13) Morrison copper-gold mine, near Smithers. This may not be good news for Pretium Resources Inc. (PVG: $7.66), whose Brucejack mine application for environmental approval was just accepted for ministerial review last week. It is the only other proposed mine besides Morrison up for review, but once an application has been accepted the likelihood of final approval is good. Any concern now about Pretium would result from whether the Brucejack application gets caught up in the Imperial Metals' spillover. There are also 28 B.C. mining projects in the preapplication queue. This is the stage during which the ministry can ask for more environmental studies. Once it is satisfied, it accepts the application for filing and releases a decision about three months later.

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